I am first and foremost an artist of the Vision galaxy, commanding the star ship IMAGE:OXR, marking a course through the third universe in the year of the millennium 2002.
As the world turns toward the inevitable clash with its androidian destiny, I have resolved to maintain a trajectory that will keep me on course to an inward rhythm that will secure my place in history and allow me as a free thinking individualist to paint my heart’s desire, and grasp a society that is traveling at quantum velocities toward a past this is so far distant that is seems cool and soothing, and serves as a touchstone for the realm of my burning imagination. As that dumbing down of the world continues to snatch the mindset of countless electronic techno-wannabes ready to serve the multinational government through the cranial implantation of a super microchip in crowds of androidian driven numbells, I propose to open a vein in my arm and let my images flow on the canvas.
I am an artist who utilizes the figure as a central focus to the artistic cosmos of my dreams. In the narrative sense, I invent stories of a man and woman racing together to find the chalice of the heart, which they seek in order to arrive at a harmony with each other, and with one’s own psyche. More, directly, I paint archetypal symbols of a psychological nature. These symbols deal with myriad relationships of man chasing woman in lustful bacchanalian carnage, and woman finally wresting free in her attempt to ground man and him to a more practical realization. The protagonist in my paintings is a slick character called Doktor Thrill. And believe me, he’s a smoothie. He’s everyman’s idealized self out for fun, frolic, and you know what.
Somehow he has to be slowed down in his diametrically opposed pseudo adventure with his own sense of self. And guess who gets the job? Right: acrchetypal woman in the guise of the eternal siren, wearier her bustier, her heels, and her silk and satin gowns. She sets out to conquer Doxtor Thrill with all the guile of ten thousand centuries behind her, and moves with confidence onto center stage and awaits the arrival of her soulmate-to-be. During this epic drama that plays out over the course of canvas after canvas, they dance cheek to cheek, do the tango, sing and flirt with each other, while lingering over the scene is the lure of the full moon and romance. Doktor Thrill is captivated but not caught… yet. Just remember, it’s all a game, and Doktor Thrill loves, loves, loves women. Woman in this drama on canvas is represented by a blonde Snake Lady, a brunette Blue Angel, and a red-headed Lotta Heat. As the stories play out in my mind and on the easel, the archaic characters are a great deal of laughs, and they become the vehicles for my prickly sense of how man and woman intermingle in an implied past world of a lost Gatsby era, but reclaimed in my paintings.
Accentuated by fast cars, vintage planes, and good wine, they linger in the romantic dives of New York, L.A., Paris, and Berlin. And it’s ok to smoke because it’s the past, and it’s only a painting, not your lungs, pal. And in my paintings, everything is fair game. My mind hasn’t been snatched by the propaganda meisters. So sit back, watch the show, and enjoy the ride.
On a painterly level, my thrust deals with two aspects: the viscosity of paint as visual locution, and the plasticity of artistic form as I paint the primeval scream of my soul, and wrench forth the various nerve-wracked underpinnings of what a great painting can be. Let’s take a closer look. I do a good deal of pre-thinking before I hit the canvas with pigment. It starts in my mind, slumbering as a seed, but incessant yet inchoate, then percussive. After a time I start with marks on paper trying to wrest something intelligible out that will begin to flow much as a tide kicks up the waters. I won’t bore you with these artistic struggles to make cognition explode onto the painting surface. Just remember that art is not cranking out images as a trip hammer. It is a horrendous challenge to one’s quest for beauty in the form of knowing what one wants to say and being able to say it well. I work every day of my life. Art is my life. I have a gift and I use it. It keeps me in touch with the spirit of creation. And for me, that is what life is all about.
Viscosity. Texture. Thickness or thinness of pigment. Juicy, messy, incorrigible, resistant, and ultimately expressive in specific ways of handling plasticity of form. You want to give that feeling that you spontaneously arrived at Valhalla by the manner in which you touch the paint to the surface. But oh, God; what a struggle to arrive at such a sublime moment when every aspect of your painting feels good, and it works, and the painting is lit from within. Abstraction, your own sense of realism, atmosphere, little secret ways to make your paint flow, and a hundred years of practicing, day after day, every day of your life. That is what a beautiful painting is about. It comes from the depths of your being. I hope that you will enjoy the subtleties of humor in the work, sense the difficult struggle of making art, and see some of the connections and fun that go into making a good painting. A bien tot. See you soon.
