Early, Raw, Uncooked...

Looking at a few earlier pieces today...talking very early...the painting below is from 25 years ago - not too long after the exhilarating stay in Rome, via RISD - where I got to do whatever I wanted - haha! Now, I still get to do what I want - but I gotta pay for it (in more ways than one!) Its nice to see some progress and to see a continuity in exploration at least. As a younger artist, art-making was all about ideas, but the older you get it just starts being about who you are....

Deus Ex Machina ( Total ) - with a very helpful explanation to boot....

I've never been particularly interested in painting pictures to hang on walls for decoration...its been more of a visual odyssey exploring the metaphysical universe of my subconscious and its relation/ my relation to the infinite ... and, like Icarus, I'm always compelled to reach beyond my limits and come crashing down... case in point: this latest image began with a very modest mind-set wherein I was going to paint what I called "A Fragment of a Mystery" - realizing maybe that's all we can hope for in this lifetime. I even painted it in a horizontal (sofa-sized) format, which I haven't used in a long time - thinking - I'm really, really going to keep it to a single image/canvas this time....
just exploring the emotions contained within abstract elements in metaphysical space - coming to life - so to speak....

I was content with it at first, but gradually my mind, as usual, began to "see" the image expanding outward in space. First, I created its reflection on the computer (as I am want to do - I find reflective imagery fascinating and an apt way of looking at manifested reality being a mere reflection of the unseen) . And, of course I began to see many "masks" staring at me, enticing me to go on...

And again, the image expanded in my mind, so I added another canvas to the top and painted away. After that, I added another to the bottom to reach my blasphemous "Godhead" - trembling, holding together just long enough to satisfy my insatiable need "to see it all", after which it falls apart - really more a masquerade, a distraction - and I fall to earth again.....back into Mystery.

What's interesting to me is I see how the boundaries of the canvas are very superficial to me - just a momentary enclosure for what's "moving around in the space of my imagination."
I'm obsessed with the expansion of space and form and light and the "higher emotions those evoke" - plain and simple ( as many painters are) - and the nice thing is this one image can be broken down into wonderful "decorations" to accent any living area - haha!

the top and middle sections (below) are a "stand-alone" pair that offer endless hours of viewing pleasure - kind of reminds me of a coral reef - but with abstract, painting elements coming to life standing in for the fish, etc!

Working....

No studio to work in at the moment - at least I have the living room... I'm crazy, restless for space right now - large paintings and sculpture wanting to be made...keep thinking about how Michaelangelo never got to finish the sculptures for the Pope's tomb the way he so desperately wanted to. The Pope had him painting away in the Sistine Chapel for years...even the greats didn't always have things go their way...sigh.

"Frankenstein's Daughter"

"Darkness"

Took a painting from last year and started adding dark layers of varnish to it...darker and darker til just  the barest trace of light left. I'm happy with it. One that really needs to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. Its like a signpost saying to me, "This way if you dare!" - time to get back to work...

New Piece!

"Act of Creation During a Moment of Melancholy"     acrylic on canvas, 32"X40".
( a description of some of the process involved in this piece follows below it:)

I began "Act of Creation During a Moment of Melancholy" with a completely different aim in mind: a bright, colorful, cheerful painting! It sat on the easel for some time in that state- cheerful and happy - and very shallow. It left me in a constant state of annoyance. Gradually, colors and light, of a very different nature began to fill my mind…until a moment came when I went back to work and created my dark, "melancholy" painting - at last, very happy and pleased with myself! But, as it turned out, I wasn't finished just yet…the bolt of life-creating energy (into all that lifeless abstraction) literally came out of nowhere, right in to my mind, like I had set the painting up for it to occur. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for - a sort of "search for the miraculous". The cosmological intertwines with the psychological, the macro invades the micro.

 Carl Jung's quintessential question, that he believed every human contained within themselves (whether they liked it or not) was : "What is Man's relation to the infinite?"  The art-making process is part of my search for answers to this question. 

  And it is said, "Always have a question". I have always had the question, "What doesn't change in Life? Everything is so transitory. This leads to questions about subjective states vs. objective states. Artists tend to dismiss the possibility of objectivity..Picasso's famous quote in regards to critiquing art:  "..its like picking the wings off butterflys." Artists get very defensive about being able to create "freely" - that any kind of objectivity would kill their imagination. 

   I'm not so sure. What I've found is a way to perhaps work with one state, the subjective, with the aim of allowing the objective in, as well...I like to start my paintings the way an abstract expressionist would - with no clear image in mind - only the blank canvas before me. I began this process years ago, so It takes a lot to "start fresh" each time. What has happened , over the years, is a sort of visual vocabulary has developed "of its own accord". The different organic shapes, etc that fill "my void" clearly connect to different experiences and different art influences I've had during my own subjective lifetime. These free associations fill up my "inner universe"- so to speak. Everybody is a doorway between the inner and outer universes. I like to think of my work as "abstraction come to life" within a metaphysical space.

  When I look out at the vast night sky I see an empty, dark, cold expanse of space both awe-inspiring and frightening at the same time. How fortunate I am, then, to be able to fill-up my own "inner universe" with comforting shapes and colors! Years back I was so curious about what the planets actually looked like, I invested in a very powerful telescope. My first view of Saturn literally knocked me off my feet. I began to see all sorts of amazing things: nebulae, star clusters, galaxies and color! The first time I saw a Red Giant star orbited by a Blue Dwarf star I was stunned by the sheer brilliance of the color.

 The older I get, it seems as if this thin veil between the two worlds, outer and inner, are constantly overlapping. My fascination with the night sky and expanses of space now permeates the inner world I paint on canvas. Events and circumstances seem to play off each other in ways I'm not even aware of most of the time. Its a cliche at this point in modern talk, but while I'm actually painting, I try to practice, as much as I can , being in the "Now" - dividing my attention between what's going on in my mind and on the canvas and what's happening in my body: my posture, my breathing, the sensations in various parts of my body. In this way, I believe, I can at least bring a little objectivity into play with my subjective states. The aim here, isn't to be less melancholy! More, its to be present to it - allowing it to be - when the inner position is:  "OK paint - I'll watch."

Dreamer