Absolution (oil on canvas 2019)

(Private Collection)

When I was an undergraduate in college the painter Richard Sheehan came to the campus as a visiting artist for a day. He gave a slide presentation of his work, after which he fielded questions from the audience. I was enthralled by his work, mostly cityscapes and suburban neighborhoods, many characterized by views looking through underpasses, all of which showed both impeccable draughtsmanship and compositions that were both inventive and flawless.

But what really struck me was his use of color which, although highly effective, had nothing to do with the local or perceptual color that I, at the time at least, associated with representational art. The paintings were filled with bright yellow skies, acidic lime green trees, and deep ultramarine shadows. During the question and answer period, I asked him how he chose the colors that he used. He basically said that he chose the colors that “worked for the painting”. I honestly had no idea what that meant, but not wanting to seem like an idiot, I smiled, politely thanked him, and sat back down in my seat.

I pondered his answer for years, especially when I took up painting again after a hiatus and happily rediscovered Richard Sheehan’s work on the newly launched internet.

I eventually understood exactly what he meant and realize, in retrospect, that I could never have understood the lesson until I had made (literally) hundreds of paintings. Each color in a painting is affected by and affects every other one and getting all of the colors to work together toward creating the overall image is arduous work, especially since each color seems to have a personality and will of its own – some vying for dominance and refusing to get along with the others or to back down when another color asserts itself (and they can often be both seductive and manipulative!), and other colors that just want peace and harmony. The artist's job is to bring all of this potential chaos under control and to hopefully create an arrangement of colors that looks (in spite of the oftentimes immense amount of effort and struggle involved) inevitable.