Paintings: Shown 2001

Here are some of my most recent paintings, shown at Pierogi in 2001.

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Obviously, I'm fond of illusion, and things that look vaguely natural.  I think the "it looks like something macrocosmic; it looks like something microscopic" vein of abstract art can be pretty trite, but it can also cut right to the core of abstraction and have you feeling something deep in spite of yourself, because our ability to interpret illusion is built in, along with the urge to pick out the essence of things.  You can feel things in your gut before they're processed by your intellect because you are built to see them.

And that's one thing art is really good for, isn't it -- letting us think and feel deeply at the same time, and run at 100% of what we -- as brains strapped onto animals -- can be?

I'm also fond of simplicity, and of "internal consistency," so the symmetry of process and results here -- where a process similar to erosion produces images that look eroded -- appeals to me.

Paintings: Some Range

Here are some more paintings I did in the 1990s.  As you can see here and on other paintings pages, the technique I used in the later 1990s had some range, with cliffs, ice, vines, and hard desert landscapes all poured from the same bottle.

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It is spooky when slightly different ingredients and actions -- massaging the surface of physical phenomena like tossing pebbles on a still lake -- can suggest completely different forms.

Aside: It has given me a spooky feel for the fabric of spacetime, which is good.  If this whole universe was poured from a single bottle cooked up in a lab -- if we live in a virtual reality, a simulation set off by some scientist after adjusting a few values -- it wouldn't bother me at all.  Because our ability to appreciate its beauty, and our impulse to try to climb up out of our world into the scientist's, would not be lessened one bit.  (Excuse me, but if creationists can spit out "scientific" ideas as twisted as a can of worms and still get published in school textbooks, why should I keep my crackpot theories to myself?)

Of course color influences what's suggested, and one thing that disturbed me was how color that made inutitive sense to me seemed to "get in the way" for others; the most popular paintings were the least colorful.  Like differences in the way individuals perceive illusion, it makes me wonder sometimes just how much I can trust my vision.

Paintings: Bright But Never Shown

Here are some paintings I did in 1996-7.  For whatever reason, I felt the need for bright action.

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None of these were shown in a gallery, but they all survive.  All are 48" along the short side.  Two are owned by a clinic that does cancer treatment.  I thought they might be a bit too much for patients already full of radiation or on chemotherapy, but I'm not a licensed physician.

Paintings: Fickle Fate

Here are a few paintings from a show at Braunstein/Quay in S.F. in 1996 that hardly happened; it seemed like no one saw it, and nothing sold.

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I decided afterwards there were too many "just decent" pictures in the show, and painted over nearly all of them (I finally rescued pictures of the painted-over ones, here).  The experience was a reminder that the creative life can be cruel -- not only do you have to produce good work, but you have to deal with rejection when trying to get a show, then bad luck if the show fizzles.

(That sniveling makes me think: Boo hoo...  You take the scenic route, then complain about the bumpy road?)

Paintings: Shown 1995

These are some of the paintings shown in 1995 at Braunstein/Quay in San Francisco (all four here were done in 1994 and are 48 by 48 inches).

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The technique involved pouring thin layers of paint over a textured surface.  Like my later work, the image would begin to appear almost immediately.  Unfortunately there wasn't much room in the technique, and I had to move on.

Paintings: First Illusions

For the record, some of my first (at least sort-of) illusionistic paintings, shown in 1994.  All three were 36 x 36 inches.

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Paint

This is yet another one of my videos that "just sits there," even though I am moving furiously inside it.  The subtitles and music are fuzzier here than in the original.