Statement
Artist’s Statement
One thousand words cannot show you a painting, but a painting is worth a thousand words.
When I paint, I work intuitively. The objects I randomly incorporate into my work are everyday things I see around me. I paint in and complete each object before starting on the next objects in the same painting. The painting is finished when I see that it does not need more things in it.
I used to paint abstract compositions as well as surreal dreams. Abstraction left me cold and removed from the world. I realised that I yearned for reality. The surreal world I painted left me sad, confused, and alone. Both of these disciplines showed me how to love and respect representational art.
I have often painted cherries because I love them. Their shape is simple. Cherries are red and yellow making them warm. Their surface is slick. They can be sweet to sour. Painters have used cherries in their paintings to represent love, passion, virginity, devotion, lust, and life. I like the ideas of simplicity and passion. For me, cherries are simple because they are round. I think of passion when I think of cherries. Cherries are here for us to eat in summer. In summer, we are ready to feel the sun on our bodies, abandon the cold dark days of winter, go to a beach, enjoy long lazy days, and eat cherries.
As of November of 2007, I no longer paint only cherries. I am now interested in the forms cherry tree branches take as they grow. I paint these branches as realistically as I can. I try to make them look alive by making them appear to come off the surface on which they are painted. These branches are a new interest of mine and I plan to work with them until the next bend in the road.
Intuition plays an important role in my art. I intuitively choose colours, number of objects, size of objects, and ground surface on which I paint. Intuition helps me choose the kind of object I select to paint. I intuitively use various viscosities of paint as well as transparency of paint in my work. I call on intuition to tell me when a painting is coming to its completion and stop adding objects to the composition. Nevertheless, if intuition ruled all of the decisions in my art, I would be an abstractionist or a surrealist. That time of my life is in the past. I do rely on one historical artistic tool that has helped artists for thousands of years. This simple but elegant proportion enhanced art long before the Renaissance Period. The mathematical quantity of 1.618033988 or The Golden Ratio is something that I try to use whenever I place objects in my paintings. We can see this proportion in natural things like branches, turns in shells, body proportions as well as in river bends.
I have not used a thousand words to talk to you about my art but perhaps now you can think of my art and think of more than a thousand words when you see it.
