Statement

Through this series of work, I continue to explore the same themes and visuals that have always kept me painting.

Whether you look through a microscope or look through an airplane window, our world is textured, diverse, pocked, patterned and burnished in its splendor. It isn’t always pretty, but it’s always beautiful.

I love deep forests, oceans, vast deserts, and outer space - the mystery and beauty of what seems like endlessness. We can only see what we can see. For me, there is something deeply spiritual there; something very human about being slightly blind, all the time. We are, in many ways in this life, operating with very limited sight.

We’re a little bit blind. We build things and make up stories and folklore to make sense of a world that we don’t understand. And we cling to what we’ve made because it’s there; it’s a physical thing that we can touch. We build and build and work so hard, and yet all the other creatures on the planet seem quite content to just sit and be and look. Yet we humans demand meaning.

My art is an attempt to engage with something deeper, more fundamental and elemental.

Sit and be, and look.

My story starts in my hometown of New Roads, Louisiana.  A town more than 300 years old with a wealth of history and outlined with lush beautiful live oaks and very tall pecan trees.  It’s easy to see that the trees of my childhood have inspired my paintings.

The subject of my paintings are trees, usually in a wide open field.  I often describe my paintings as a marriage of my past and present life.  Big beautiful trees of my childhood paired with beautiful clear blue skies and wide open spaces that are prominent here in north Texas.  My paintings are almost like portraits of trees.  I take photos of trees that inspire me and then try to paint them as realistic as possible and create an imaginary landscape around the tree(s).  People have described my paintings as surreal or hyperreal but the application really takes on a pointillist and sometimes very impressionist style.  I paint happy, I want the viewer to smile when they observe my paintings. 

My “DeGRAPHI” style of painting which I created about 17 years ago to challenge myself offer an even more impressionist interpretation.   I coined the term “DeGrpahi” as an acronym for “detail graphics”.  These paintings feature details I refer to as;  swirls, starburst, basketweave, or crosshatch, etc..  Quite a bit more detail than my traditional tree paintings but they have a loyal following today.  DeGraphi's are priced a bit more because they are a bit more challenging and take more time to create.

 Thanks  for taking time to view my art.

Statement

This body of work relates to nature as I see and experience it daily. Going for a hike in the mountains or simply working in my garden, I find myself swept up by the world around me, losing myself in its majestic beauty. It is that moment, that feeling, that inspired this body of work. My paintings are not an attempt to replicate the places I have been to - but rather an homage to the memory of those moments, capturing their essence in color and movement. This feeling of total immersion; of being suspended in time and space is what brings me to the canvas.

On canvas, the resemblance to nature is further echoed in the looseness of the paint application. The use of opaque and translucent layers create varying degrees of solidity and airiness that move the eye both forward and back within the painting. The layering and blending of the paint, mixed with the bold contrasts of tones, mimics the disarray and chaos seen in the natural world. Using twigs dipped in ink for the line drawings further encourages chance and spontaneity, while a sense of structure is created by horizontal and vertical elements. This play on the delicate balance between chaos and order is a central theme that runs deeply through all of my work.

Sometimes, more often than one would think, a shoot just falls together perfectly. This assignment for American Airlines, shot on location in Palm Springs in 1990, is a great example of talent, location, and the weather all working together with the result being a beautiful, flawless, timeless collection of some of my favorite photographs. Chandra, Julie, Gary and I were entrusted with the freedom to do what we each do best. Some of the images employed the now extinct Polaroid Polapan transparency film, which was a very delicate and challenging medium. I developed the traditional black and white film in the darkroom and recently digitally scanned the images utilizing a drum scanner. This process insures the highest quality reproduction. I printed these images using the finest modern archival pigment inks and papers. I’m thrilled to be able to share this series, my fifth exhibit, with Craighead Green.

ON VIEW 4.10.19 - 5.3.19