Dark Passing Painting

The act of painting is an intellectual and spiritual pursuit of something higher and greater. I believe that art helps us find answers to unanswerable questions. Art and the act of making art keeps us in touch with our humanity. It can point the way to the truth. (It cannot lead us there; that's up to us individually.) It can be a transformational experience for both the artist and the viewer. I am heavily influenced by the abstract expressionists. The work of Richard Diebenkorn, (my favorite!) Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Joan Miro have all greatly affected how I see the world. I don't intend for my work to transmit or telegraph my emotions or feelings, but they tend to do that. Its to be expected that a part of the artist is coded into every piece. The size of a painting is important. A large piece can be very intriguing. To stand before a field of color or texture that is almost monolithic; that nearly stretches from edge to edge of our vision, that is large enough to almost step into, can create a sense of incongruity, a tension. Working smaller has a very different experience for me. It is much more intimate and personal; not unlike that of a traditional icon. A singular thought, a precious moment, held close to the heart. I like to work with graphite and acrylic paint. They are immediate and flexible. I can add or remove lines at will. The acrylic paints dry quickly, allowing me to move on. Most of my larger paintings are done using a large drywall knife to spread the paint across the surface. It allows me to maintain that sense of urgency, immediacy, even on larger pieces. I frequently use a carpenters snap line of different colors and a large beam compass. These are tools I am very familiar and comfortable with, having used them for many years working as a carpenter and boat builder. Structure and order is important to my work. I tend to proportion and lay out my work very carefully based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers or proportions. It has been referred to as "Gods Fingerprint". I find these propostions to be visually very satisfying. These same proportions can be found throughout nature. I often start with a question or a concept that I have been wrestling with. "If I could grace, what would it look like?" "What color would melancholy be?" "What shape would truth be?" It's a process of turning undefined thought and pure idea into defined visual clues.