Art is not something I do, but rather, it is a reflection of who I am. As I honor the process, my work takes on complexities which parallel life itself. There is a reality, but it is altered with perspectives, a reality beyond real.
Years ago while at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., my experience with an abstract painting changed how I perceived reality.
It’s almost closing time. Exhaustion forces me to sit a moment. There before me hangs a huge black and white Franz Klein. Allowing myself to be pulled into the painting, I become aware of movement – the tension of two black shapes?pulling together, the silhouette of a white shape exerting resistance.
At that point, I realized, this is a new reality. Could I use imagery but incorporate these ideas. Make shapes push or resist, make the imagery part of the movement.
The process is “letting go.” Letting go first of visual perceptions I see before me and tapping into an inner experiential perception. From that vantage point, I don’t “see” just a pot of geraniums, but rather, I experience them as a child watching my Grandmother tend mismatched pots and cans of the gangly plants. The sun washed colors, the defining shadow patterns are there, but there is more.
Letting go further moves the work into this place where the function of shapes supersedes the visual and experiential perceptions.
Here is where layers of color simply hold spatial positions.
Where shapes?form masses that set up movement.
Where color relationships set up a “give and take,” a part of one object, yet a part of another.
Where loose definition allows viewer interpretation.
These are things I cannot consciously make happen, but as I move through the process of “letting go,” I know when the work flows and when it is lifeless or static.
Movement is a part of all life. My work is not about isolated images, but rather an integrated imagery that exists as a part of this continuum.