Abstraction and Reality Statement

I have for most of my artistic career created paintings and serigraphs in a style I call “Reality with a Twist”.
In 2016 I finished a long term series that I had been working called, “Pandora’s Trojan Horse; Exploring Issues around Climate Change.” That series was both a labor of love, and extreme concern for our planet as we know it. The one aspect that I eventually got quite frustrated with, was the incredible amount of time I had to spend in front of a computer researching the 20 different topics covered in the series, in order to get all of the visual details as well as the facts correct, for both the artwork, and the accompanying write ups.

My current series, “Abstractions and Reality” is a direct reaction to my computer frustrations. I needed to get into my studio and create, to just move paint around in an unplanned and unconstrained manner. The first two paintings in my “Abstractions on Reality” series were created in 2014. Originally, I thought I was just playing with paint for my own amusement, but something in the creative process clicked for me. This series has moved me far outside of my comfort zone, to challenge myself and develop new ways of looking at the creative process. I am trying very hard not to settle into a ‘new’ comfortable style, but to continue to stretch myself with new techniques and new tools.

Abstractions and reality is an important new direction for my art, but at the same time, on a subconscious level abstraction has always been with me as an artist. Even before I chose a career as an artist, my doodles were almost always abstract. The freedom of artistic movement I have gained through this new work, the ability to perceive the entire painting at an earlier point in the development, while still working hard to maintain the compositional integrity, are newly honed skills which I feel will have a positive influence on my artwork from this point forward. The process of striving towards the creative ‘Wow’, is exactly the same for me whether the painting is realistic, or abstract. I will never create a perfect work of art, however the pursuit of that goal, the planning, the creating, the ruminating and the tweaking is what drives me creatively, and that is an integral part of who I am. I feel like I am growing as an artist through this series and the challenges I am overcoming with it.