"Project 1998" Painting

To begin, these works are neither delicate, pretty, nor precious. They are rough hewn and hacked from life's tumult. Each piece was wrestled into existence. Some, not all, have a tear or a patch, were reduced, expanded, manhandled, typical New York school stuff. So some papers may be smudged, creased, or wrinkled. Brushwork is textured, sometimes thickly layered, others whisper thin. The marks, the blips, the blemishes are the archeology of my process, but also the marks of each work's history. Each piece is a search, a journey, a living question leading, ultimately, to the next darkened door waiting to be opened.

My paintings and drawings are the residue of my glance, artifacts of my attempts to see. All the works are "two-eyed", meaning none are copies of photos or flat images, or captured through digital interfaces of any sort. They are purely human product.

Redreamings - Through dreams I access internally-generated subconscious images. Redreamings result from my attempts to understand the underlying message of those images by revisualizing the dream. To render the image of the meaning of the dream i blindfold myself. There are two reasons for this. First, the volume and dynamism of dream-form requires me to limit the impact of ego-interference on the content when condensing it into a static image. To avoid that i blindfold myself, then relive the dream in as much detail as possible while blindly drawing. This provides an abstraction from the dream. Second, i meditate on the resulting abstraction. This is my way of asking my subconscious for a second dream, a "redreaming", if you will, based on abstracted remnants of the initial dream rendering. The result is the image of the meaning of the dream. Working however my subconscious uses my hands to move the paint, I never know in advance where a redreaming will lead. To a great extent most of the image paints itself. The subject of redreamings is 'light' because it is synonymous with consciousness.

Essays - These works are a form of psychological analysis recorded in compositions orchestrated through drawings of a series of poses. They are all one model each. The model poses. The figure is drawn on the page. The model changes to the next pose. The second pose is considered in how it relates to the first as well as all future poses. A relationship between the first and second poses as well as all the others is intuited, and the second figure is placed.