"Hidden Layers" Painting

My current series of paintings is called “Beneath the Surface.” The subjects of my paintings, and all people, including nature itself, have many layers. We have our dark sides, and light, parts of ourselves that we show, and others we hide within. Together, this combination creates the beauty of who we are. My hope is that the viewer sees and interprets the paintings, or parts of the paintings, in a different way, each time it is experienced. This is how I believe we view people, nature, and life, always seeing and realizing new things, each time we look, as well as always being impacted by what came before. I generate the ideas and concepts, with the painting process itself. The unpredictable nature of the layering of materials that I use between the paint, covers, and at the same time, emphasizes areas, and concepts or metaphors, as I go. Each step is a reaction to the one before. It is a constant building up of an image and tearing it down. For me, the more layers I paint, the more interesting and thought provoking the surface becomes. This is a metaphor for humans and how we are shaped by what we have experienced in some form or another. I use transparent materials between the layers of paint so that the paint stages, or traces underneath, show through, always seeing the steps before. My intention is to arrive at a balance between the order and the chaos, light and dark, and tradition and expression, always searching for the balance, as I do in life. The paintings begin to have a life of their own that is not really in my control.