In reaction to the alienating forces of globalization that have trivialized our personal lives, the local movement seeks to satisfy our needs with a more sustainable, far less unwieldy paradigm. In light of this, we have come to value the intentional communities of friends and family over a life of reckless individual ambition and the uncritical acceptance of inherited relationships. In my work I explore the dimensions of personal relationships with friends and family. Though we may have known people in our lives for long periods of time, we can never consider them as finite or exhaustible. If we do, it signals a death. Our personal relationships themselves are constantly evolving characters in our own histories. Further, they are the ordering principle of our lives. I have painted many of the same people over many years and am constantly enthralled with the discovery of how we change in attitude and action, in stance and gaze, yet we seem to remain constant.

           The subjects in my most recent series of paintings are at leisure. The scenes hint at the gold age of man, when humanity was freer from toil and urgency. The light and rich color eschew the clinical, highly intellectualized and cold allusion-laden tropes that come out of the gray hubs of the world in favor of pervading warmth. Being with our intentional communities often removes us from the rushing and attention-diverting conditions of modern existence. Friendship seems to take on the dimension of the gold age of man.

           My process includes both additive and reductive techniques of applying paint, to create layers within the paint film that allow for multi-layered realist and abstract representations to coexist. Most recently, I have been applying paint using materials that carry unity through pattern, such as wire mesh and bubble wrap, in combination with direct brushwork. By nature, the reductive process deepens discovery on the canvas because the results tend to be less predictable than the additive process. The layers of paint appear in discretely ordered beads that vary in tone and opacity, suggesting flatness giving way to motion, ebullience and harmony. This directly correlates to the diversity and interconnectedness of micro-communities. The paintings from above explore the spiritual and voyeuristic tendencies found in the act of observation for both subject and viewer. The viewer is placed at a vantage point that is rarely accessible in every day life, but one that we always seem to wish we could experience.

7/2008