EXHIBITIONS
I owe the discovery of the Mysterious Island to a paradoxical conjunction of painting and music. William James, the 19th century philosopher posited over a hundred years ago that in order for evolution to proceed, consciousnous was a necessary ingredient at the origin of everything. Contemporary physics, anthropology, and linguistics demonstrate that we live in a participatory universe and the notion of people as casual observers is illusory. The very act of creating a landscape can soon find itself occupying the space it seeks to frame. The dilemma this paradox poses for landscape painters has revealed a relationship between the landscape and the methods used to record it. <read full text > |
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A great portrait of a hero might be the last photo of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner. Gardner when photographing the President, accidentally damaged the plate and the resulting image rendered a crack through Lincoln's head. The line became almost prophetic in its foreshadowing of events to come in the month that followed. What an odd occurrence, in reality it was a bad photo that should have probably been discarded. Who is this man Abraham Lincoln? He lived at a time when the U.S. was a small country and Illinois was it?s wilderness. His thoughtful gaze seemed to put me at ease when I began painting his portrait. <read full text >
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Gazing out into the night, I find it compelling the way trees, buildings and telephone poles become un-ordinary objects in a new mysterious space. Sometimes, the horizon disappears and the boundary between Earth and sky evaporates. Sometimes, it is both night and day. “Vesper” (the evening star, especially Venus ), marks the time of transition, where the spiritual feels near and ordinary objects are viewed against the infinite. <read full text > |
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Abstract painting in the twentieth century drew great inspiration from music; particularly improvisational jazz. If painting was to survive, the critic Charles Caffin stated, “ it must take on something of the quality which is the essence of music– the abstract.” Modernism challenged art to explore boundaries beyond the conventions of representation or symbolism. The surface was no longer a mannered statement but a living entity that demanded more from the viewer. <read ful text> |
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In 1863, William T. Sherman marched on Atlanta in what would be
a brutal campaign to the sea. One yhear after the war in 1866,
George Barnard photographed the approach and documented the sites.
Limited equipment required that he 'construct' his cleaned up
views in the studio for a sense of 'realism.' In 2004, I traced
the campaign and re-photographed the sites. This time however,
the emotional impact of forgotten historical sites seemed appropriate
to render as daguerrotype paintings with scarred surfaces, though
some of these sites today are in bucolic suburban neighborhoods
that appear indifferent to their past. |
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The Moon is both a familiar and an extraordinary place difficult to apprehend. It is a collective vision situated between imagery and fantasy, poetry and science. When we look into the universe astronomers tell us we are literally looking back into our past, into the origins of all things and when space began. The light reflected is actually the light of memory, of history, or of events already gone by. Physics at times becomes metaphysics and theology; aesthetics and mythology all seem to converge into one primordial place. <read full text > |
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