oil on canvas
30x40
$3000
Now being featured in the 72nd annual National Juried Art Show in Cooperstown, New York
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Portrait of an Old Man
oil on canvas
30x40
$3000
Now being featured in the 72nd annual National Juried Art Show in Cooperstown, New York
Artist Statement
Lately, my work has been focusing on the relationships between art and language and my exploration has been expressed primarily through portraiture, both realism and abstract.
I have been working through the idea that language oftentimes hinders our ability to be in awe of something, to be truly inspired by the visible qualities of something and allowed to see its underlying beauty.
As an intelligent human race, we have created language to form relationships between ourselves and the world around us. If we look at a mountain we automatically think "mountain." We might think about ski slopes or 'height' or 'weight' or 'snow' or 'cold.' We might think of how many school busses make up a mountain. Then we might think how many people tall a school bus is. We work a mountain down to us.
We make it understandable.
I've been wondering about connotation and its necessity in art.
What would it have been like to have been the first man to happen upon a mountain?
For a few short moments, before I could make a sound for it, before I could give it its symbol, it would be pure.
What is it like to actually see something?
My goal is to bring people back to this first free association. To the first moment when they look at something and don't have a word for it. Rather, then see 'face' and 'nose' and 'skin,' I want the people who see my work to adjust to a visual language unhindered by words. Without knowing the reasons for it, the composition that is a pleasing aesthetic or an attained realism, I want people to feel the painting, for love or hate of it, without having to diagnose their feelings.
It is my goal as an artist, as a portrait artist, to help people see the familiar unfamiliarly.
And to dream for those who have forgotten how to.
I have been working through the idea that language oftentimes hinders our ability to be in awe of something, to be truly inspired by the visible qualities of something and allowed to see its underlying beauty.
As an intelligent human race, we have created language to form relationships between ourselves and the world around us. If we look at a mountain we automatically think "mountain." We might think about ski slopes or 'height' or 'weight' or 'snow' or 'cold.' We might think of how many school busses make up a mountain. Then we might think how many people tall a school bus is. We work a mountain down to us.
We make it understandable.
I've been wondering about connotation and its necessity in art.
What would it have been like to have been the first man to happen upon a mountain?
For a few short moments, before I could make a sound for it, before I could give it its symbol, it would be pure.
What is it like to actually see something?
My goal is to bring people back to this first free association. To the first moment when they look at something and don't have a word for it. Rather, then see 'face' and 'nose' and 'skin,' I want the people who see my work to adjust to a visual language unhindered by words. Without knowing the reasons for it, the composition that is a pleasing aesthetic or an attained realism, I want people to feel the painting, for love or hate of it, without having to diagnose their feelings.
It is my goal as an artist, as a portrait artist, to help people see the familiar unfamiliarly.
And to dream for those who have forgotten how to.
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