The Old Partisan New Resistance Painting

My work is fundamentally that of a studio artist. I do use images of human figures, as well as what might more traditionally be called landscapes, however, the human images and landscape components are not intended to be descriptive of specific individuals or places. Rather they are expressions of ideas in pictorial form, substantive and particularized. I begin with an idea, a concept and then select images (shapes) uniting them with the other elements of composition (colors, values, spaces, line, form, texture) and manipulate those to carry the idea (content) of the piece. At the very center of my work is the concept of the aesthetic narrative. Within this consideration, aesthetic narrative paintings are work(s) expressive of concepts, ideas, philosophies or any number of content-texts. The pieces use the power of visual images to provoke thoughts, rouse feelings and stimulate the intellect. The work may call into question commonly held beliefs, relate stories, or challenge preconceived ideas. As a studio based painter my work has been a continuing investigation into the essence and nature of constructed images as individual entities that are neither reliant nor dependent upon a one to one reproduction of the subject matter referred to in the work of art, Presentational rather than Representational. Presented in this context, the work I do is both informed and inspired by my studies into the development of a particularized visual vocabulary. Although precisely articulated my works are rendered with no intent at a naturalistic description. Since copying is not the desired end, it is the process of choosing specific images, colors, values, and patterns of organization for the individual compositions that become my principle creative concern. To identify this principle of choice within my work, flattened plains and subjective color are used with objective values to underscore the distinction between the models, and the interpreted images referring to those models, stressing the fact that they are painted forms, pigment on canvas, drawn, graphite on paper, or lithographic crayons on stones hand pulled in limited additions. Adding to the distinction between the referenced subject as models and the interpreted images within the work, I employ an original design technique fusing the distortion of forced Renaissance perspective into regions of broken picture planes.