Since the beginning of 2017 -- about four months -- I have focused on painting small, representational still lifes and landscapes. I have sharpened my observation skills, color matching skills, and worked on painting from "outside in" -- looking at something, recording what I see, and noting my perception and reaction to what I see.
I recently posted this painting -- "Reflection" -- which I have worked on for at least two years. It represents the style and process of how I have painted for the last several decades -- "inside out".
This painting, "Garden Play" was painted recently and was also painted "inside out" but was inspired by an actual place. It was done without reference to a photograph. For me, "Reflection" tells a story just as "Garden Play" does. I don't need a story to find a painting meaningful or satisfying, but I know some people do.
I have long been interested in exploring the continuum -- of everything. Politics, aesthetics, morality, and sexuality. My work falls into about five stylistically and thematically distinct collections. Work made thirty years ago could be hung with work made last year and two pieces of work made this year could be hung and thought of as from two different artists.
More to think about this ... Frost's "Road Not Taken" ... deveoping A Body (not bodies) of work ... representational vs. non-objective ... Gerhard Richters photorealism and abstraction ... the juncture of radical left and right politics ... fluxus ...
"Wine Country Mustard Field" -- also painted recently -- would be at the other end of that spectrum from "Reflection"...
