My painting has always been concerned with the possibilities particular to painting. Issues of plastic form, flat shape, pictorial vs. illusionistic space, and the actual space of the object itself. Lately through my use of color and paint application I've attempted to infuse my paintings with a sense of lightness, or weightlessness, while also working toward a spontaneity in overall effect. I see this spontaneity and weightlessness as the antithesis of most formal abstraction (or painting in general) where denial of hand, increasingly elaborate supports, and an airless seriousness seem to be the defining norm. The language of current abstraction, its tendencies toward mechanical perfection in fabrication, and the fetishizing of technology for its own sake, seem like artifacts of a modernist utopia with no relevance to humanity or our condition.
To categorize my recent work by its general description of geometric abstraction belies its actual perception by the viewer.The term seems to imply a hard edged painting method and hyper-craft.My work is a rejection of that assumption, and a subversion of its devices. Poured resins, sanding, and polishing are not painting: it is auto body work or furniture making, without the benefit of a useful function. That type of art making is a glib take on minimalism that eliminates minimalism’s force and substitutes it with an inoffensive decorativeness.My work makes use of similar motifs, but for completely different ends.I refute hard edged geometry with imperfect mark and fleshy texture.I deny the rigid stability of the object by rhythm, movement, a feminine sense of color, and space implied beyond the object itself.My paintings, through their use of these elements, and a flawed aspiration to beauty, attempt to communicate the spirit common to all of us as people: an uplifting and uncontainable hope.
