Artist Statement
The current paintings explore images of torsos emerging out of an indefinite dark ground. The earliest of these largely non-gendered torsos was completed in 1998.
Painted in oil and alkyds on small (16" x 12") wood panels, these works establish a stark figure-ground contrast, as the bodies themselves take form with a veiled and indistinct quality. The work develops without the artist precisely knowing where it is headed. Repeatedly, thin glaze layers of paint are added, then sanded, new layers added, and sanded over a period of easily several months or even years. Many paintings are in process simultaneously, in a studio practice that encourages surprise.
These works are not titled. Words are useful tools, but titles seem to have next to nothing to do with the paintings, as they are made and experienced. The work’s kernel comes from childhood, in ways and for reasons that are not consciously clear.
The ongoing thread in this work is the body, and its potential for retaining wisdom that the brain forgets. The body is seen as fluid, constantly changing and reconfiguring itself, in and out of states of merger and solidarity. The torso is conceived as a portal through which all sorts of associations, memories, and secrets may slip, emerge, enter, or exit. Received in infancy, the body slowly transforms into our adult form. All the things we knew and have forgotten are still there, waiting to be remembered.
Since it is largely buried, labor is required to excavate the wisdom contained in the body, in the unconscious, and in the primal, animal self. Making these paintings is part of the deliberate work of allowing both physical and psychic matter to reveal the inner significance they hold.
These paintings explore what it is, as a human being, to be embodied. They enquire into the conundrum of having both a head and a body–a consciousness and a physical self. Immensely mysterious, even as it serves as a pedestal for the head, this body always asks the question, “Where does the me reside?”
The body: fluid, constantly changing, reconfiguring, in and out of states of merger, solidarity. Bodies come from bodies.
Received in our child body which transforms into our adult body. All that stuff we knew and have forgotten, still there. Waiting, perhaps to remember some things once known.
...stuff of which the universe is comprised - us. Wisdom from matter, even unconscious matter.
The conundrum of head and body: having a body and being a head or is it having a head and being a body? Immensely mysterious, this body, this pedestal for my head. Where is the me? The Buddhists are on to something.
My work explores what it is to be embodied.
Artists I admire, in addition to those listed previously (Brice Marden, Daisy Youngblood, Nicholas Africano, Ellen Phelan, Martin Puryear, Ann Hamilton, Mark Rothko, the Cycladic creators) include Antony Gormley and Julio Sarmento.
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