In my painting, I take a 21st century approach, an appropriation of styles created by the 20th century avant-garde. Because my aim is to keep the objective (how they are created, composition, line structure, balance of forms and so on) balanced with the subjective approach to art (the ideas pertaining to why create it and what it says) I focus on the most visually based eras of 20th century painting, those typically found in movements prior to post modernism. One could say that I sample or loosely appropriate purified styles and combine them into new works - a synthesizer if you will. Entering the realm of abstraction I fully embrace the 20th century’s original strongest opponent to representation, Cubism, the movement which rejected the convention of perspective, unbending since its discovery in the early 15th century. At the same time Cubism was able to offer a justified alternative in composition that contained space and structure.
The other essential elements like color, line quality, and patterns in my work are influenced by a wide array of works across the board from the early 1900’s Europeans such as the Fauves, through the 1950’s New York school with the large canvases and loose brush strokes to the arenas of the Pop movement that embrace pattern.
As I begin, I lay out sketches on large canvases in a manner that is technically derived from gesture studies for academic paintings or drawing that can lead one who uses this style throughout the creation of a piece to make composed works with loose lines and form, hence the objectivity of my work. These lines I create often form circles or squares, two common building blocks and visual codes of our universe, circles being natural, squares being manmade. To these I often add simple, often primary and complimentary colors, leaving plenty of black and white to neutralize their intense impact. I then (sometimes before) lay on patterned objects to print or drip paint through. I rotate my canvases constantly to achieve perfect equilibrium. Nonetheless there comes a time when I set the work at a preferred orientation for viewing. From this point forward I build and rework. It often comes to a brutal battle for me where I feel as though the painting is alive and fighting me or maybe the painting is refusing me at every turn. It’s like a war. Often my final brushstrokes are a final blow to the work and….. That’s it.
