December 16, 2017

Liquid was one of the last paintings I did for the series "Entropy". This painting led to the current series, "Scapes". There were of coarse many paintings that were failures before "Scapes" manifested to it's current state.

Over the years I have found it was helpful to always keep experimenting while working on a series. This kept the work from becoming stale. As a result i always seem to have several series developing at one time. Currently I have three. The main focus currently is the series "Scapes".

"Scape" was the natural result from pushing the edge in the series "Entropy". When the forms started to become more landscape like I continued to push and experiment. At first I thought the work was about the many landscapes I travel through when going back to visit family in California. The southwest is often very sculptural and dramatic with big skies. After reviewing the work I realized it was not necessarily strong and a bit too "pretty", so I continued to experiment, investigating so to speak as to what needed to come out. "Scapes" was the result. It was after a few failed paintings that I realized it was not about the lands I drive thorough but about the environment we occupy, excavate, mold and disrupt. It is about the power of the land, sky and sea perhaps crying out or disrupting us in turn.

The work became more bold as I made a concession to myself, my work no longer had to be nonobjective. This was somewhat difficult after doing nonobjective work for the last thirty years. But as I let go the work became less timid and became bolder in it's vision.  My goal is to finish 10 - 15 paintings in this series. I will post as I continue.