Artist's Statement
For a long time my work has involved depicting fantastic or impossible light sources within believable spaces. I have been interested in the tension created between seeing a form to be physically present in the depicted environment, and seeing it as an abstract aesthetic choice imposed upon the surface of the canvas. In this most recent series of work entitled, The Garden, I’ve gone one step further. The ambiguity now infiltrates the very fabric of the image.
It is my aim in this work to blur the boundaries between what may be describing an actual place, what may be happening in that place, what is simply an abstract aesthetic choice, and what may be resultant from a mechanical procedure in generating source material for the work. This described ambiguity is much deeper than simply an inability to identify what one is looking at. It is an inability to even place it categorically. This question I hope causes the viewer to begin to analyze their own perception, and more consciously register how and why they are coming to judgments.
This ambiguity functions in terms of form, but it is also present in the use of color. Color has become increasingly a part of the content of my work. I would hope that color would appear to function both locally, actually representing the color a thing or place was, while seeming subservient to an externally imposed grand design. While viewing one painting, color choices may seem somewhat natural or fitting to the subject. When one painting is compared to another, there is obviously a certain amount of choice imposed in order to make each work occupy a different area of the spectrum.
I’m very interested in how color has been used to imply transcendence within the history of western painting. In Northern Renaissance paintings, prismatic color shifts were used to imply a center of holy power. In monochromatic paintings, all things are believed to be representable by one. Rather than adhering to any specific belief system I prefer to question how color can function today within this rich history.
I believe my recent works function as prismatic monochromes if such a thing is possible. On one hand they prove that a work can contain all variations of one color and the most intense variation of all colors and still feel like a true monochrome, giving one color authority over all. On the other hand, each individual monochrome is subservient to a prismatic body of work.
The works exhibited in thesis are three of a six part series intended to be shown together. Already completed are Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta. The other three will be Red, Green, and Blue. Perhaps the first association people think of is print and computer colors. I’m interested in taking those associations on, but also think of these colors as the six colors of light that white light can physically be broken into with a prism. This ordering is much older than modern technology and can be seen as mystical and elemental as well as being mechanical. This is yet another ambiguity of category that I whole-heartedly embrace.
The paintings are all based on photographs, but I do not consider myself a photo-realistic painter. Or if I am, then I am also a post-impressionist, an eighteenth century landscape painter, a northern renaissance painter, and a monochrome painter. The photographs are all taken through a prism within my own garden. There are traces of these humble origins present within the final works. However, they are transformed, alternately functioning within an implied grand or even cosmic space. Transcendentalism is as much a part of the process as it is evident in the final product.
I very much see myself as a part of a new kind of romanticism, one that is characterized by a mixture of belief and doubt. The works precariously situate themselves between unabashed romanticism and mechanical reproduction. A complete fall into either camp would be catastrophic; however, it is this danger that contributes to their energy.
Other Writings
A Tangential Manifesto (PDF)- A true short story about my past that ended up as a sort of artist's statement.
Rock in the Art World (PDF)- A review of Sufjan Stevens' album "Illinoise".
The Highest Point, Still Contained (PDF)- The Contemporary Sublime
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