NEW WORK

2010

FRANCE

 We moved from The United States to France at the end of May 2009. We stayed in Old Lyon until the beginning of September. Our new place is beautiful and has a separate studio a few meters from the main house. Within the first week I began to paint the series that you see to the left. I have painted continually from that time until present. I now have a series of thirty paintings. Most of which will be shown in March  at 'OFFICE duTOURISME D'UZES' in the south of France.

     The challenge of this series is 'clothe'. Seemingly a must to conquer if one wishes to present convincing figurative work to an audience. I must say that I started each painting with equal measures of anxiety and excitement. I find the experience similar to skiing. I got better and better as the series developed. However I did take a few spills.

 

Some  of the thrills that I enjoy about painting are my thoughts. It seems unlikely that as I dab a dot of color here and there, that I would also think about the origins of the universe, quantum mechanics and werewolves.

To me it is ironic that the '2D field' can inspire thoughts of infinity and particularity. As I paint I think often of George Kubler, Andrew Wyeth, The Abstract Expressionists...and so on. Following is a rather lengthy quote from George Kubler.

"Cassire's partial definition of art as symbolic language has dominated art studies in our century. A new history of culture anchored upon the work of art as symbolic expression thus came into being. By these means art has been made to connect with the rest on history.

 But the price has been high, for while studies of meaning recieved all our attention, another definition of art as a system of formal relations, thereby suffered neglect. This other definition matters more than meaning. In the same sense that speech matters more than writing, because speech preceds writing, and because writing is but a special case of speech." 

George Kubler, 'Shape Of Time' 1962              

Most othe paintings in this series have nothing to do with meaning. And even when the do they are supported by formal consideration. That is to say, lline, space, shades, tones, diagonals,color theory,occult compostion etc.