Material and Metaphor

"I have long been drawn to the vocabulary of transformation. The rubble and raw material, the scaffolding and tarps presuppose a need for change and the hope that change is possible. There is an honesty in these forms admitting to being alterable, vulnerable, incomplete. Each city and its people are wrestling with their own histories and potentials. Materially and metaphorically humans are in constant negotiations-- what will go, what will remain, who will we become?"

Excerpt from the artist statement for this exhibit, Material and Metaphor, November 2023.

We Lived Happily, 2023; acrylic on cradled panel, 30" x 40"

The title of this work is partially inspired by Ilya Kaminsky's poem "We lived Happily During the War". The contrast of our own life with the lives or losses witnessed leaves us with moral questions. For some, scenes of destruction like this foreshadow new construction and urban growth while around the world such sites promise only tragedy.

We Lived Happily, 2023 detail

acrylic on cradled panel, 20 x 16"

We Slept Easily, 2023; acrylic on cradled panel, 40" x 30"

As I worked on this group of works, not only the hue but the value range of light and dark narrowed. It needed (or I needed?) the contrast so close it threatened to become one flat plane. These are quiet paintings. If one is to see them, they require a long look to allow the eyes to adjust. They invite or require time and attention. Incidentally, they are also very difficult to accurately photograph. The blue, while quiet, is not a pushover. It changes the temperature in the room and has lingering effects.

We Slept Easily, 2023; detail

The flexibility of language intrigues me. Striving to make clear a meaning is about word choice but equally so intonation, cadence, and so many other nuances of relationship and context. In these paintings, some areas or forms are highly rendered and refined in a realistic manner. Other areas are barely painted, barely delineated. Language and meaning and our world are all under construction simultaneously, tipping in and out of focus.

Provisions, 2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 30” x 40"

Provisions, 2023; angled view

acrylic on cradled panel, 30” x 40"

Material and Metaphor II, 2023

acrylic on shaped and cradled panel, 48" x 36", supported by cinder block.

Material and Metaphor I, 2023

acrylic on shaped and cradled panel, 48" x 36", supported by cinder block

Material and Metaphor I, 2023; detailed angled view of installation

The painting shapes itself to the world. The image, as a thought, reacts to physical realties. If this painting stands, it relies on the cinder blocks to do so. If it hangs on a wall, we will feel the incompleteness of the rectangle, the presumed shape for paintings and images historically

Material and Metaphor I, 2023; detail

Throughout the autumn, we would stop almost daily to observe the demolition of twenty some small apartment buildings on our morning commute. Our city redefining itself toward unknown ends. This is a witness image but removed, it could be anywhere; it could be an end or a beginning.

Material and Metaphor II, 2023; tarp. construction mesh ( 11'x 6' ), found wooden pallets, dry wall.

In this installation piece, I wondered how else to 'paint’ the room and grapple with a surface barrier between us and the world. The surface of a painting is a kind of screen onto which I've been projecting ongoing meditations on construction and transformation. Historically, we talk about painting not quite as a screen but as a window into another world. A window, a screen. Maybe a 'filter' is also apt-- a barrier between us and something or somewhere else, holding something in or out while letting something else pass through. Filtered, the image is both more easily digestible and more distanced from reality. Closer and farther simultaneously.

Material and Metaphor II, 2023 detail

The particular blue of construction mesh and tarps is paradoxically appealing and alarming. In the aftermath of the tornado in 2020, tarp covered roofs created a dot to dot map of the tornado's path. But it is also a celestial blue like so many artists have used to render the dome of heaven.

Brick Stack, 2023 with context

acrylic on cradled panel, 12" x 9"

Fit, 2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 12" x 9"

Fit, 2023; angled view

Line Up, 2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 9" x 12"

And, and...,2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 40" x 30”

Lion's Mouth, 2023; acrylic on cradled panel, 12" x 9"

I think of all the hands that have used this lion faced door knocker and the number of graffiti artists making their mark over (who knows) how many years or decades. The blue absorbs all the sound, space, and time into one image, one signal.

Hold, 2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 12" x 9"

Spin, 2023 with context

acrylic on cradled panel, 12" x 9"

Spin, 2023 with Linon's Mouth, 2023; each 12" x 9"

Stack and Mortar, 2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 12" x 9"

We Lived, 2023

acrylic on cradled panel, 20" x 16"

Installation at Kresge Gallery, Lyon University, AR.

found and altered pallets, orange sandbag and plaster cast bricks.

Installation at Kresge Gallery, Lyon University, AR

November 2023

Material and Metaphor II, 2023

acrylic on shaped and cradled panel (48" x 36") supported by capblock, orange sandbag peaking from behind. Installation at Kresge Gallery, Lyon University, AR, November 2023.

Material and Metaphor II, 2023 detail

acrylic on shaped and cradled panel (48" x 36") supported by capblock, orange sandbag

Fit, 2023

Installation at Kresge Gallery, Lyon University, AR; acrylic on cradled panel (12" x 9") with orange sandbag behind

Fit, 2023

Installation at Kresge Gallery, Lyon University, AR; acrylic on cradled panel (12" x 9") with orange sandbag behind

Installation at Kresge Gallery, Lyon University, AR, November 2023

The transparency of the mesh used to fence a construction site recasts the mess into a place of potential and intrigue. In this installation, the length of the running fence collapses onto a flat wall. Each layer of blue adding and acting like a painted glaze.