"Variations on a Black Line #1 and #2"
30" x 30" Oil on Canvas
Rather than menacing, the black line has the power to set color ablaze, accentuating texture, color and style. I'm especially fond of these paintings as I worked on them in Italy, paying close attention to the subtle colors of various landscapes.
"One Night in Needles, California #1 and #2"
20" x 20" Oil on Canvas
“One Night in Needles, California #1” and “#2” are 20” X 20” and composed of oil paint and oil stick on canvas. How can one night be so memorable, a night when nothing happens including sleep? Needles is nowhere. Nothing happens in Needles. Needles is where nothing goes to die. The empty diner late at night. The scorching heat, even after the sun has gone down. The hotel room with a scorpion skittering across the bathroom floor. Sometimes a painting comes from an unconscious dream.
“Prairie Landscapes: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter”
These paintings are monumental works for me. Composed of multiple layers of oil paint, these large paintings represent a personal experience of the seasons in southern Indiana. I live on a quasi-prairie. It’s surrounded by pines and maples and oak trees, but the property is also open with meadows giving way to stunning sunrises and poetic sunsets. Seasons aren’t merely something we observe; seasons are within us as sources of psychological energy and spiritual landscapes. In these paintings I’m trying to capture, or better said, express, the feeling of the seasons. It’s my hope that in the presence of these paintings, the viewer will not just see the colors, but begin to feel what winter is like inside his or her soul, or fall, or winter or spring. While each painting stands on its own, I’ve harbored a secret hope that the four of them as a collective might find a home in a public building such as a church or school or government building.
"Dreaming of Mexico" (SOLD)
30" x 30" Oil Paint and Oil Stick on Canvas
“Dreaming of Mexico” is 30” x 30” and composed of oil paint and oil stick on cotton canvas.
Many years ago, I discovered the photography of Jeffrey Becom in a small art gallery in Carmel,
California. His work is characterized by vivid color and insightful architectural awareness. I have several of his photographs hanging in my home in Bloomington, Indiana. I had no business
buying his work because, for me at least, it was a financial stretch at the time. Yet now, many
years later, I treasure every penny I spent on his work. Dreaming of Mexico is something of a
homage to Becom’s work. I continue to focus on color and texture, as well as the juxtaposition
of lines. I love the colors of Central America and Mediterranean cultures. In this painting I’m
invoking sky, as well as the colors of doors and walls. There’s a sense of place in this painting,
but also transcendence into a timeless atmosphere of beauty. (Sold)
"Yellow Line"
30" x 30" Oil Paint and Oil Stick on Canvas
“Yellow Line” 30” x 30” is composed of oil paint and oil stick on cotton canvas. It’s hard to know exactly where this painting comes from inside my psyche, but it surely is related to spending so much of my adult life in California and admiring sunsets over the Pacific Ocean. There is often that moment when the sun is going down, or maybe in a horizontal break in the clouds, that a thin ribbon of light appears. Sometimes it’s yellow. Or orange. Or pink. That thin line fascinates me. It's strange how the thinnest of lines hold together a whole landscape. The same can be said about those thin lines of feeling within our souls, how those thinnest of connections hold together so many large feelings, thoughts, and ideas. “Yellow Line” is an unconscious meditation on the way small ribbons of experience hold our lives together.
"Pink Line" (SOLD)
20" x 20" Oil Paint and Oil Stick on Canvas
“Pink Line” 30” X 30” is composed of oil paint and oil stick on cotton canvas. This is one of
several “line” paintings I’ve been doing recently, and I have several line paintings in my studio
that are not on my website, so call if you are interested in seeing more. I am exploring in these
paintings how lines meet, run as parallel realities, and yet, have the power to define what is
above and below. In a certain way, the line paintings are quasi-landscapes. I have an endless
fascination over how the horizon of the ocean meets the sky, or the ridge of a hill meeting the
atmosphere, or how even a bridge runs across a river or bay in a series of steel lines. In “Pink
Line” I imagine a night sky and how fluorescent tubes of light burn in a city landscape.
"Red Feeling"
30" x 30" Oil Paint and Oil Stick on Canvas
“Red Feeling” 30” x 30” is most definitely a landscape abstraction composed of oil paint and oil
stick on canvas. The “Hotel California” is right around the corner as I drive across Death Valley,
heading toward Los Angeles, as the sun begins to set, burning red in the sky, and it creates, not
merely a landscape to observe, but a feeling to be experienced. What does it mean to “feel”
red? Anger? Lust? Passion? Danger? All of that and more is found in these color fields.
"Liminal Feeling"
5 feet x 6 feet Oil on Canvas
"Liminal Feeling" is a large painting, 5 feet X 6 feet, and consists of nearly fifteen layers of oil paint upon a museum grade cotton canvas. Liminal space is that space of unconscious ripeness, like being under water in an oceanic state of confusion, not confusion in a bad sense, but in the sense that we are thinking and feeling and open to the many possibilities of the future. To not know where you are going, that is to say, to be lost, is not a bad thing, and in fact can be a good thing. Even a necessary thing. With striations of blues and greens, not to mention other colors, I am trying to create that feeling of both being lost and being open.
"Restless Beauty"
5 feet x 6 feet Oil on Canvas
“Restless Beauty” is another large painting, 6 feet X 5 feet, composed of oil paint on a museum quality canvas. This painting probably has 12 layers of paint and is highly textured, as well as full of wonderful colors. The vertical lines of paint create a sense of restlessness, a movement of energy moving up and down the canvas. I have been a lover of beauty my entire life, but more than that, I am restless for it, long for it, and my soul needs it like oxygen. I did this painting a few years ago and love it, one of three paintings this size that I did. It currently hangs in my house, but I’m happy for it to find another home.
"Listening to Lou Reed #1"
30" x 30" Oil on Canvas
"Listening to Lou Reed #2"
30" x 30" Oil on Canvas
“Listening to Lou Reed #1 and #2” are companion paintings consisting of oil paint on canvas and are 30” X 30” in size. It’s sometimes hard to explain why one is drawn to an artist, but in my case, I feel that way about Lou Reed. Yes, he was a rock and roll musician, but his songs, much like paintings, told a story. “Caroline Says” and “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” to name two were daring songs because they were touchingly human, daring stories told with artistic ingenuity and flair. Lou would often draw artists into his inner circle of friends including the great painter Julian Schnabel who was a close friend to the musician. I still play a lot of Lou Reed music in my studio when I paint, and although I know it dates me, it continues to inspire me, as well as making me think about what it means to be a human being. I use a palette of black and green and purple in these paintings, capturing, for me at least, the creative brooding of Lou’s music.
"Evening Thoughts #1" (SOLD)
48" x 36" Oil on Canvas
"Evening Thoughts #1" (SOLD)
"Evening Thoughts #3"
48" x 36" Oil on Canvas
"Evening Thoughts #2"
48" x 36" Oil on Canvas
"Evening Thoughts #4"
48" x 36" Oil on Canvas
These four paintings – “Evening Thoughts” – are composed of heavy applications of oil paint on canvas and are 48” X 36” in size. Although one is sold, the other three would look so nice as a kind of triptych on the wall. These paintings are exhibitions (and icons) of contemplation. There is not a message. The message is no message. Color and texture. Texture and color. These paintings are meant to quiet the mind but inspire the imagination. They are paintings that I see from time to time while working in my studio and I find myself saying, “I like this. I like how this painting makes me feel.” The paintings are not light, but heavy with color, texture and depth.
"Cherry Blossoms at Night" (SOLD)
36'" x 36" Oil on Canvas
“Cherry Blossoms at Night” is one of my favorite paintings. It’s 36” x 36” and composed of many layers of oil paint on cotton canvas. I applied the paint wet upon wet upon wet, creating
blossom-like images of red and white. Not to get too nerdy about it, but this painting was
inspired by watching several films by the Japanese director Kurosawa. His use of floating
blossoms fascinates me. Also, seeing orchards in the Central Valley of California in the spring, as well as the cherry blossoms in Washington DC, informed my consciousness while making this
painting. The surface has a high degree of gloss, which means even at night the painting likes to
show off a little bit with a subtle degree of luminosity. (Sold)