Psychedelic Tree Painting

All of my recent paintings have involved tree forms. I am not interested in specific trees or in working from observation. I am interested in trees as a point of departure for exploring visual relationships, technical experimentation and emotional states. I think of my trees as living beings, or visual manifestations of human souls. I considered myself an abstract painter for years but I don't really feel the need to describe myself that way any more. My earlier work was based on systems, color theory and geometry, taking the form of Hard-Edged Geometric Abstraction. While my work received critical attention and significant sales I ultimately came to find my working methods cold and lacking the human element. At the age of 41 I decided to finally go to graduate school and to essentially start all over again as an artist which turned out to be a wise decision. I have developed a very specific process in the last several years for applying fluid acrylic paint using needle-nosed plastic bottles. I work on the paintings while they are flat on a table and I carefully squeeze beads or puddles of paint onto the surface. I then push the paint around using the tip if the bottle and working wet into wet. Because of the nature of the techniques that I have developed the paint sometimes runs or drips, or the edges of adjoining puddles bleed into one another. Although I want the surface of the finished painting to be smooth and glossy, like one continuous puddle, I allow these various imperfections to remain because it is essential to me that the paintings should maintain a handmade quality. It took me years as an artist to find the right balance between making work that is structured while at the same time wanting to make work that retains evidence of the history of how it was made. I finally feel like I am accomplishing that in these new paintings. I don't know of any other painters who are doing work quite like this and I find that exciting.