Warbler

female warbler (in progress)
oil on canvas-wrapped panel
8 x 8"

female warbler detail

Black Pigeon

Black Pigeon
oil and enamel on canvas-wrapped panel
12 x 12"  2012

Black Pigeon detail of enamel

Warbler Echo

Warbler Echo
oil and enamel on canvas-wrapped panel
12 x 12", 2012

Warbler Echo detail

New Birds, in progress

Black Pigeon (in progress, detail)
oil on canvas wrapped panel
12 x 12" 2012

Black Pigeon (in progress, detail)

oil on canvas wrapped panel

12 x 12" 2012

Warbler Echo (in progress)
oil on canvas-wrapped panel
12 x 12" 2012

Warbler Echo (detail in progress)

Bluebird

Bluebird w/halos

oil and enamel on canvas-wrapped panel.

10 x 8", 2012

Passenger Pigeon

Passenger
12 x 12" oil and enamel on canvas panel.

(Left) Passenger painting after first sitting. The return to canvas also marked a return to palette knife techniques, which I haven't employed in quite a while.

I've been fascinated by the Passenger Pigeon ever since hearing the journal entries of John James Audubon who describes their mating rituals and great power of flight. Of course the Passenger Pigeon was a highly successful species of bird that was relentlessly hunted to extinction by 1914. The physical descriptions describe it as a rather handsome, blue tinted dove with a orange breast and the specimen on view at the Harvard Natural History Museum is truly great.

The white dots allow for further exploration of religious/mystical shape symbolism, this time describing a radial symmetry, while suggesting a circle, which is present in the 'Our Lady' paintings as well. A friend of mine suggested that it also resembles a target, which is also rather apropos. The dots once again manipulate space by appearing to float above the image; simultaneously flat and adding dimension at once. I want this to be an arresting image, one that changes and surprises as you look at it, and I think it accomplishes these things nicely.

Pigeons

Deep field pigeon
oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel
8 x 8", 2012

75 years
oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel
14 x 18", 2012

Halo form

Halo form
enamel on canvas wrapped panel
12 x 12". 2012

Quilt man

Quilt man
oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel
8 x 8" 2012

Small Floral Arrangement

Small floral arrangement

oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel

9.5 x 7" 2012

Autumnal

"Autumnal"

oil and enamel on paper-mounted panels, each 3" x 2.5"

3 hanging options, 2011

Homing Pigeons

"Pigeon"

oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel, 3" x 2.5" 2011

"Homing"

oil on paper mounted panels, triptych, each 8" x 7.5" (8" x 22.5" total)

2011

Homing detail

Contrails

"Contrail"

oil on paper-mounted panel, 6" x 5.5"

2011

Our Lady

"Our Lady" (night)

oil on paper-mounted panel, 15" x 17" 2011

"Our Lady" (day)

oil on paper-mounted panel, 15" x 17", 2011

A nod to Velazquez while exploring the idea of the halo or ring of stars. Letting the symbol stand alone, deity removed (in this case the Holy Mother) creates an interesting tension; the aura of spirituality without the figurative elements. As a lapsed catholic and a painter I think its useful to confront, or at least start a dialogue with roman catholic iconography, the backbone of western painting. It also reminded me of certain miracle visions, such as Our Lady of Fatama, which is a truly strange episode with apocalyptic secrets passed on to unsuspecting, yet devout children, culminating in a blinding mid-day apparition confirmed by an entire town.

Religious iconography, and the stories they serve to better tell, present us with a fascinating intersection between faith, natural phenomena and the ability of the mind to extrapolate meaning from both.

Double Exposure

"Lapse"

oil on paper mounted panel, 8" x 6.75", 2011

"lapse"- detail

A kind of abrupt return to figurative work, "Lapse" represents a kind of culmination of certain proclivities and directions that have shown up in my work in the past year. Playing with the distorted image, doubling and visual confusion that more directly talks about movement or time passing (in this case, time enough to glance down). In many ways this painting feels new, bold and challenging, but it also feels very much like where I left off with figurative concerns- it feels like a MICA painting; it also unabashedly references my favorite figurative painters, Vuillard, Sargent, Uglow, Saville...not that this diminishes the spark of the painting. If anything, it's like comfort food, or a new way of telling a familiar story. And hopefully the yellow, which has an associative significance for me, off-sets that ubiquitous Baltimore gray that I tried so hard to un-learn.

"Yellow shirt"

oil on paper-mounted panel, 8" x 6.75", 2011

Pigeon Camera

"Pigeon Camera"

oil on paper-mounted panel, with PVA and pencil. 8" x 7", 2011

Pigeon Camera- digital study

More Trees

"Most Everything Does #2"

oil on two paper-mounted panels, each 7" x 4.25"

Part two of trees and phone lines.

I like how the color gradation can be interpreted as both dawn and dusk, beginning or end.

Detail of panel preparation. Paper mounted panel, primed with gesso, and cut into a grid relief within both panels, that is then primed with PVA. The variation in surface height allows for interesting textures as well as the painting sitting "within" the rest of the surface. I don't think I would do this for every painting, but surface wise, it made sense for these compositions.

Reference Journal

Various pages from my reference journal / image log / study archive.

Print-outs, type samples, photoshop compositions, notes and various types of tape.

So at some point I started keeping a reference book. It's a hefty red-covered volume of gridded pages containing various source images and studies, culled from books, family albums or worked out in photoshop. I try not to do much drawing; it's intended to be a kind of un-edited flow of imagery that for whatever reason I find exciting, interesting or useful. There aren't any rules about what I put in the book and not everything makes it to a painting, but it is selective. The idea is to keep track of my aesthetic preferences so I can better understand where decisions come from. Of course, anyone could do this because everyone has aesthetic interests. I think these particular interests come from certain larger (perhaps sub-conscious) roots. In less convoluted terms, what we find attractive or interesting visually, stems from our unique, personal worldview. It can't be said that everything in the book has a psychological underpinning, but that's part of why it's interesting- you see patterns start to emerge. And images that don't seem related at first, might find echoes a few pages later. The idea of a visual log isn't really anything new to practicing art and I'm willing to bet that almost all artists keep some kind of log, in some form. I think it is an increasingly important practice, though, as our image-saturated world seems to sometimes be at the tipping point. (Google image search, camera phones w/filters, design everywhere) It can be hard to focus. And by keeping very literal tabs on what applies to my work at present and past, I can learn to ignore everything that doesn't. Until it does.

A progression:

Body of images----------> Body of work -----------------> An idea

(broad, but specific) (focused, but progressive) (singular concern)

Some trees

"most everything does" 2011

oil on two paper-mounted panels, each 7" x 4.25"

hanging option 1

Same piece, hanging option 2

Again, taking advantage of the playful possibilities inherent in the diptych format. This also continues some of my recent interest in slightly skewed images. I enjoy the surprise of the compositional shift and hope it hints at something related to memory.

All of this is very much in the early stages, more to come.

Comet Hyakutake

"Hyakutake" 2011

Oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel.

Each panel 8.75" x 8"