When painting I feel an infinite sense of possibilities available to me, a space in which I can create a world on my terms.
As I begin the process, I have no preconceived idea of how the completed work will look or what feelings it will reveal along the way. I respond to the work spontaneously and remain as open as possible allowing for eventualities beyond my conscious limitations. Much of my process revolves around avoiding such conscious definitions of right and wrong or good and bad. Often I will intentionally make what I believe is the wrong choice in order to reveal a completely unexpected result. I approach the work in terms of the whole frame and respond instinctively according to that perspective. As the layers of paint build up, images begin to reveal themselves. Some emerge through references loosely transposed from found photographs and others occur by chance as in a random arrangement of accidental marks.
Chance plays a key roll in my work. I relate to the elements of chance that Francis Bacon referred to in his work. These chance elements seem to simulate the fractal dimensions of nature that appeal to human perception. During the process there is a great range of sensation that I experience to arrive at a completed work.
This current collection of paintings found me longing for some tangible sense of form within the work, namely of the human body. Suggestions of natural landscapes, sexuality, and the human form conjure an emotional tension. They are no more than impressions, an almost visual short hand with a subtle sense of the spiritual.
I use large brushes in my work for big gestural washes and marks or to blend and blur layers. I also use pallet knives to apply blocks and lines of color or to remove, scrape or blend the paint on the surface of the canvas. Over the last decade my techniques have evolved with my compositions. |
