Profile Status
About / Bio
Over these years I have almost exclusively devoted my efforts toward figurative studies. I have always been fascinated by capturing a person's likeness. Yet I appreciate the difference between a photo and a drawing or painting and that it is the human intervention of the artist that makes the difference. And, since our brains are wired to be most sensitive to anything human and particularly the face and figure, the creation of representational figurative art is considered a most challenging endeavor. This challenge is one reason I work with figure. Another reason, also related to this wired sensitivity, is that figurative images are most able to generate an aesthetic response. And art, as I define it, is anything created at least in part for the purpose of generating an aesthetic response.
My drawings are interpretations of what I see. I try to construct them in such a way that I find pleasing. They involve intuitive variations in line and toned shapes such that they also (hopefully) work as abstract compositions. I explain why I find a line or shape or a combination thereof pleasant, as being just a human thing, somehow shaped by our evolutionary past. Drawing was more important for survival in the time before language, and now a child soon neglects it once the effectiveness of language skills takes over. For me drawing brings back a kind of joy, probably similar to the same joy as I experienced as a child scribbling in a coloring book.
My paintings are extensions of my drawings. They typically start with a drawing on the canvas, usually in charcoal, followed by tentative glazes. I then selectively apply opaque paints (usually less works best) until I've said all that I can say. And more often than not I reach a dead end, which is OK, I just turn to the next page in the coloring book. My joy comes from the process. When I get discouraged I go back and look at where I was years ago starting out. Those works are less refined, but I still like them. It's all part of my journey and I consider mine as having just begun.