Between Heaven and Earth
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy. “
Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
These images come from a sense of the ongoing creativity in abstraction of images from our environment : earth, sea, sky. Without a horizon line and with no physical reference to landscape they are a deliberate attempt to emulate the “feeling of awe and wonder” we experience when faced with our natural world. They are the bridge between heaven, earth, and us, hoping to reveal a direct relationship and alignment between oneself, one’s society and nature; each constantly struggling for transformation.
Meaning in my work is often buried in the same way as that name or word you struggle for on the tip of the tongue or memories and impressions of people, places and events. Images may be reminiscent of the shore, the city street, the wooded hillside, the neighborhood, the highway. I explore those things through tone, pattern, light, space and color and texture. Deeply intimate and suggestive, the paintings create sensations that comfort, or pinch, stirring up emotion and memory. Mind photographs that reflect and evoke everyday life as sunlight and shades, stillness and movement as well as sound and quiet. Standing back, observing and imagining in some way what goes on behind the surface, the color of life lived sometimes in quiet desperation, sometimes inexplicably ordinary but more often mysteriously beautiful no matter how humble.
Done most often in series, the pieces themselves are made up of acrylic, oil, graphite, collage and other media on a multitude of surfaces and in a multiple of combinations. The process begins by laying down a gesture which leads to color, shape, and form. Much like a Rorschach inkblot but infinitely more subtle. Images are built layer upon layer through translucent color washes, scumbled paint, markings and sometimes bits and pieces of cast off materials which are used to enrich the surface…
