My Work

I am interested in the core elements of what art is—in poetry, in printmaking, and, more to the point here, in painting. In my current paintings I am exploring both the gestural element of brushwork and how pigment and color interact with surfaces. By this I mean that I am interested in both the physical nature of applying color to a surface, with the various marks left as a residue of my actions, and the materiality of paintings that I produce. These paintings are in some sense what is left after an elaborate and extended dance. They are also physical and material objects on their own detached in both time and space from the performative nature of their creation. I remember looking at a Rothko in the National Gallery in D.C. and being drawn into the thickness of the canvas. The physical layers of material that created these two huge rectangles of color. The painting was hung in a short connecting hallway between other galleries so there was no real way to step back and take the whole thing in at once, but rather you were forced to look at the details, the specifics, the trees not the forest. The canvas was sized but hadn’t been entirely primered and Rothko had built up layer upon layer of thinned down translucent glazes to achieve an overall effect of a glowing color field.

By playing with layers of gesso and washes of paint I am trying to produce a depth of field of color and shape that draws the gaze in to the materiality of the painting much like I was drawn in to the Rothko years ago. In creating these paintings I am capturing my movements as well as the chaotic and stochastic interactions between the paint and the surfaces of the canvas. With elements of collage and assemblage I am trying to further create a dualistic understanding of the painting as image and the painting as object.