Grayson Afternoon Painting

Five years ago I walked away from a long and successful career as a commercial artist designing and painting murals for museum exhibitions so I could devote myself full-time to being a studio artist/landscape painter. Being a commercial artist meant that the parameters of each of my paintings including its subject matter and style were in part dictated by committees of museum professionals. My museum murals were most often used as a means for imparting information and thus required me to employ an illustrative rather than expressive approach. I gave this up because I wanted more freedom: the freedom to create images that are meaningful to myself, irregardless wishes or approval of others and the freedom to create an image that goes beyond the descriptive to become evocative. It hasn’t necessarily been an easy shift. Self-determination has its own, tougher demands. I’ve been striving to come to my own understanding of the internal hierarchy of my painting, what's important and why. Slowly my perception of what I want my landscapes to accomplish has settled into simply this: to create spaces that pull in and hold, that take one to a place where insights form and memories linger. This is maybe why my landscapes tend to focus on the private and contemplative. Central to these goals is the importance that my landscapes are perceived places rather than objective descriptions. This is why I spend much of my time painting plein air. A plein air painting is an attempt to make still that which is in flux. Unlike a snapshot, it must unfold as the day does and so what's captured is a period of change. Consciously or not, a painter chooses what persists; what to hold onto and what to let go of. In doing so, my paintings become a story of my experience in a specific place and time. Once my paintings are complete and leave their place of origin, my paint strokes are tasked with compelling the viewer to enter and engage in this place, this drama I have composed for them. I want them to both be able to inhabit and contemplate but also delight in the knowledge that, after all, it's not real but a paint performance.