words

As a painter I am concerned with the appearance of things, the way sunlight touches a surface revealing or concealing its nature, its materiality. I am interested in the revelation of the real, the concrete: Flesh. Hair. Gold. Rags. Rust. I paint the things I see around me, the things in my life, the things I am an uncertain witness to, the banal. My eyes slide to the edge, to the shadows... 

My process is traditional: Observation, drawing, painting. There is no mystery here. You understand the continuous dialogue between this trinity in the construction of a painting, and how, too, somewhere, somehow, something else happens, obscurely, despite all will or intention...

Paintings are visual re-constructions, re-presentations, re-imaginings of objects, people, stuff out there in the world, and in working, one is, of course, highly conscious of this phenomenon, of the illusionistic and highly improbable, contentious nature of this act of painting, this ludicrous theatre, this perfidious absurdity. The painting process necessarily draws attention to this fragile footing...

I work slowly. Most paintings take a long time to make. Sometimes years. The surface is touched and changed many times. Only after a painting has long been finished do I sometimes understand why I have painted it. Sometimes. Some paintings are never finished. Some are destroyed. Some are repeated. You know this...

I can't tell you more. It’s just something I have to do.

march 2022