The camera has always been my primary tool for acquiring subject matter to paint. Although representational landscape painting has dominated my artistic direction since the 1970s, observing natural water surfaces at extreme close range through the camera's lens has resulted in photographs and paintings in which the dominant landscape theme has transformed into nebulously luminous forms within microcosmic worlds of pure abstraction.
In my abstract paintings, I look at the natural sunlight world of the northeast landscape, but now zoom in so close to my subject - shallow surfaces of water, water droplets, ice and glass interacting with sunlight - that recognizable objects dissolve into the non-representational.
I think of this work as images of abstract, hidden places that I have discovered within the natural, recognizable world, and I see these paintings as closely related to my representational work, especially my flower paintings. Additionally some of the abstract paintings are compositionally influenced by my representational landscape paintings and retain a landscape feeling that results from the architectonic placement of horizontal and vertical elements.
In my abstract work sunlight has become the dominant theme. Enjoying temporary freedom from the visual demands of realism, I am free to work with form, color, luminosity and gravity independent of the concerns that apply to representational visions.
In my abstract paintings, I look at the natural sunlight world of the northeast landscape, but now zoom in so close to my subject - shallow surfaces of water, water droplets, ice and glass interacting with sunlight - that recognizable objects dissolve into the non-representational.
I think of this work as images of abstract, hidden places that I have discovered within the natural, recognizable world, and I see these paintings as closely related to my representational work, especially my flower paintings. Additionally some of the abstract paintings are compositionally influenced by my representational landscape paintings and retain a landscape feeling that results from the architectonic placement of horizontal and vertical elements.
In my abstract work sunlight has become the dominant theme. Enjoying temporary freedom from the visual demands of realism, I am free to work with form, color, luminosity and gravity independent of the concerns that apply to representational visions.