"My work explores the connection between the artist and the model, the energy exchanged between the two. It's about emotional response, tactile, visceral, abstract, created with a limited color palette, leaving the brush strokes and drips raw and unrefined. It's as much a conversation as a picture, a snapshot of emotion, a thread running between the observer and the observed. Connective Tissue."
My work has been accepted to My color Image Gallery on Frazier Avenue in Chattanooga, TN. I will also be the featured artist for the month of March with the following events scheduled:
Meet the Artist
4pm-7pm
March 4th, 2010
Meet the Artist Demo
1pm-4pm
March 13, 2010
Finale’ Gala
4pm-7pm
March 25, 2010
Drop by if you’re in the neighborhood. It’s a great gallery featuring local artists
Special thanks to Terri Zitrick-Dennehy for the opportunity!
Ploidy is a Dysphagia type construction with a sandwiched balloon experiment as it’s base. It doesn’t fit into the rest of the series but looks very much like a tadpole on it’s way to froggydom.
I’ve never been too found of this shade of yellow but it does work well in this composition.
New work in the Seeds Series, a balloon painting on wood. I’ve decided to display this work at a 45 degree angle as it expands from the bottom point outward. Zygocyte is the initial cell formed when a new organism is produced by means of sexual reproduction. I’ve blended the illusion of animal tissue with plant, the start of another season.
Another in the rune series of painted tapes on gessoed masonite, Mannaz features two portraits of Julie, one of Quin, and parts of other models. I really love the breaking of form and the rhythm of these pieces. The two separate portraits of Julie, though not the same scale or color, read as Julie. It’s funny how the mind wants to bring order to chaos.
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This is a smaller tape assemblage made from portraits of Mila, Samara and oil sketches from Hipbone Studio. Named for the rune Uraz, meaning strength and health. I see power in this piece, it’s centered around one of the most interesting people I’ve every met, Mila Lupe, she’s got a power running through her like none I’ve ever felt before. The same can be said for Samara but it’s a more quiet current like the grass growing.
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Like Raido before it this mixed media assemblage takes it’s name from a rune, Dagaz, meaning day. There are pieces from several portraits in this piece, Zayda, Lauren, Crystal and Kari. I’ve made Zayda the focus, rearranging the strips of tape and breaking the figure. Again the mind reassembles the face and the bodies.
I’d love to get your comments on this piece (thanks to the theme author, Curt Ziegler for the fix).
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I left Portland, Oregon earlier this year after an eight year residence. I traveled cross country with Crystal Zingsheim and we stopped in to see my friend Zack in Chattanooga, my home town, on our way to the coast. I was amazed at how much the city had changed in the twenty odd years that I’d been away. Six months passed and I found myself back in town for a visit. I met Zack’s good friend Jas Milam and she invited me to sit in on one of her art therapy sessions. We chose a rune from those face down on the table before us. I picked the “R” shaped rune, Raido, meaning journey, union or reunion. I saw this as a sign and now I’m back in Chattanooga in the Rivoli Art Mill next to Jas.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been saving the tapes from my Dysphagia Series, the strips that I use to paint one work on top of another. I’ve assembled them into this composition “Raido” representing my journey from Illustrator to Painter.
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I use a lot of tape when I’m working on my Dyspagia Series. I’ve been saving these tapes for quite some time and have finally used them in a composition. They where used on an earlier portrait of Zayda. I usually throw away the checked strips but saved these for some reason. I noticed that when I staggered the squares and put them back together, my mind filled in the blanks and reconstructed her face though most of the image was missing. The board is the support that I used for years on my pastel life drawings. It carries the ghosts and energies of many images . This is on of my favorite pieces, the ambiguity intrigues me.
The Rivoli Art Mill
I have a new studio in the Rivoli Art Mill in Chattanooga, TN. It’s a huge old knitting with two floors and some great neighbors, Charles Clendenin, Jas Milan, Steve, the Mosaic Guy and Whitney Nave Jones. I’m getting my studio set up and looking for models to start a new pastel series. I’m open for business, stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.
A nude oil sketch from the Ambiguation Series. Amanda Scott is an artists model and a fellow painter, I met her in Portland. This is from a Saturday session at Hipbone Studio. I painted this in my transition from pastel nudes to oil. I struggled mightily with oils, trying to use the same technique as the pastels and failed miserably. My breakthrough happened by limiting my palette to five colors. Amanda hates this series. “It’s the color of shit and blood,” she says.
