Today, I am inspired mostly by the extremes of our human struggle, by the breadth of our brutality and by the depths of our compassion.
The running theme behind my current paintings and sculptures is the un-reconciled and often violent contrast between the poles of our individual and collective human experience (i.e. – the battle between our Apollonian intellect and our Dionysian animal) and our need to imbue meaning in our existence. To represent these ideas my pieces employ stark graphic contrasts with multiple layers and mediums that are cycled between acts of creation and destruction ( i.e.- building and burning, painting on and grinding away) By this I am trying to capture the feeling of living in a constant, fragile and anxious dichotomy; a solution for which seems either intangible or too far in the future of our species to be of use for us today.
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Grind Series
This series is inspired by the human struggle to control nature; both our own internal struggle to deny the animal in our species and the larger societal struggle to manipulate the earth and its’ indifferent rhythms. I use texture and organic line to represent the natural world and, in juxtaposition, I use right-angled forms to represent man’s hubris in trying to enforce our will on that world. Because destruction is creation’s compliment I am intrigued by the devastating and revelatory nature of fire as well as the act of gouging into the surface of my paintings to disturb the veneer and expose the purity of its’ nature below.
For these paintings I apply several layers of thick media to wood panels (synthetic masking organic) and then cut deeply into the surfaces (grinder & chainsaw) to create tension between the 2nd and 3rd dimension for each work.
I prepare the pieces by laminating clear pine planks up to 3” thick, torch-burn the surfaces to char the wood, apply variations of ground limestone, industrial stain, tinted wax and various acrylic media and then cut deep gouges into the surface.