Statement for:

New American Painting

 

Studies in Architecture, Printmaking, Art History and Psychology form the basic building blocks for my paintings.  In addition to this, I like the idea of fluidity and impermanence in my art; the sense that paintings can break apart into elements and then recombine into new organizational structures, new images and new paintings.  My paintings are devised from grids and systems but are handmade and very much open to chance and change.  

One Thousand and One Nights is a painting about endless seduction, sunlight and shadows on the dunes and Arabic music weaving and dancing through the paintings.  

Dream of Giverny is an homage to Monet’s Water Lilies.  Experiencing them in the Orangerie in Paris was an intense emotional moment of consciousness for me.  I was profoundly inspired by the way that he was able to infuse the four elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air into each painting.  In my homage the sun illuminates the clouds and sky reflected in the water while shadows dance across the surface.  Earth is represented by the physical object itself made from paper, gesso and pigments.  Music is also an element in Monet’s paintings, not only through the rhythm of the paint but also as a Mahler symphony that I clearly heard in my head as I imagined the sunlight punctuated by dramatic storms passing over the water lily ponds.  I hope that my painting includes this musical element as well.  

As a final note, I want my work to be uplifting.  I want it to have a sense of endless possibilities, of hope and of transcendence, a creative process with no end in sight.  I want the viewer of these paintings to experience some of the endless possibilities encoded within this work. 

 

Lima, Peru

October 27, 1999

 

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