Reinventing the painted surface with process painting and high relief color: A painted object is designed graphically and the surface is also an element of the design. The process I've developed is very personal and individual.  Dynamic with energy.  Bold simple graphic played against very subtle, micro-detail.  The paintings provide an exhilarating retinal experience from any distance; Bold sweeping movement seen even from a great distance. Yet, there are intimate experiences to be had, examining nearly microscopic details of infinite and complex color relationships and the play of line, form and texture.  Passages in the compositions are touched with only light washes of oil paint so the beautiful color of the unprimed linen is lightly stained with color and line.

Passages where the high relief color plays off of those lighter washes and energetic lines --- where the high relief paint skips and dances across the lighter surfaces and subtler designs. This is unconventional beauty.  Edgy and over the top splashes of color. Moments that are ethereal and airy, contrasted by the muscular ideas that appear in instances as raw and wild as the forces, and elements of nature or the stealthy inhabitants that stalk or elude. The paint medium is forged into an object that is strikingly new.

My rules when I paint are as follows; I choose to work without an a priori idea. Although I do make studies which explore vocabularies of composition and color palettes which are a point of departure when I begin the oil paintings.   I also generally avoid; surrealism, shapes, line, flat color, formal compositions.  I also don't exploit an accidental image and create images that would revert from purer abstraction to an objective suggestion. Of course I'm intuitive and have a frame of reference from years of making art that influences some of my decision making one way or the other.  I always reinvent myself and periodically start from square one becoming an artist who will always surprise you with something new.  (... of course these rules have sprung out of breaking other rules!)

All artists work with what they're given. For me the most dominant of my gifts are a liberated mind, and beautiful paints. Both are very present in my art work.

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