Excerpt from an interview with the artist, 2009:
I say yes to gravity by working on the floor. I work with the natural capacity of liquid material to flow according to gravity. Gravity is something I can dance with, I can counter and cooperate with. The materiality of the paintings has been very important. Memories of making mud pies as a kid, or staring endlessly at huge waves and foam coming into the shore on the beaches of the Atlantic ocean, petting wooly sheep at the Ohio State Fair, tactile, sensual, touch, has always been important. It makes things more real, more present, sensual pleasure, touch, a way of communication, physical, present, also attraction to the many different visual qualities of materials. Weight of materials has changed, and continues to do so, a dance that goes back and forth. In the past few years the materials have thinned. I wanted to see how light, thin and transparent I could get, testing new boundaries, sheer, atmospheric, delicate, airy, weather related. The paintings in this show may not physically weigh the same, but to each one I attach equal weight and meaning and experience.
Gestic, that word makes sense to my practice. Dancing, movement, and music in the studio, the music of Bjork. The large open plane of stretched canvas, a great pool of potential, thrilling to look at, open, blank, scary, jumping in, like a large pool of water, into the unknown. Like a roller coaster ride, fun, open, free, fast, heart is beating fast, risky, a big puzzle to solve. Open expanse, soaking into the material, psychological states.
Am I just a puddle maker? Looking at the things I’ve done in the past and present, the materials may change, but the imagery is linked some how. Contrast has been an interest of mine all along. Have I been painting the same damn painting all these years? These worlds come to some kind of place, a flow of materials, flow of the unconscious, automatism, an impulsive move that becomes a way into the painting. Flow, ideas, ideas flow, this writing feeling like a painting. Nature becomes the material for my eyes to feast on, puddle maker, alchemy, touch, natural phenomenon, distillation, condensation, evaporation, raw, cooked, over done, potion, floor overflow, spatial field, the pool, and the greater ocean. The urban life, the patinas of cement. Which reminds me of the many hours I would stare at the cement steps at the front door of my house as a child, and see pictures, places, people, all kinds of images embedded in the texture and surface of the cement. I’m still doing that kind of looking when I make a painting.