Far Too Many Ghosts (oil on canvas,2019)

On some level, every painting is an abstraction – a representation of something that it is not. It can depict a person or several people, an place, an object or group of objects. It can be a depiction of a narrative - either fictional, historical, personal, or fantasy. How accurately the image depicts its subject depends on the artist, their intent, their level of skill, and the choices that they make.

But a painting can also just be a painting – colored pigments mixed with fat and pushed around on a flat surface. The painting can also be a visible record of the act of painting. Each mark is a representation of a specific movement and choice made by the artist, some carefully calculated and others borne of intuition and spontaneity. The narrative, if one takes the time to really look at the painting, tells the story of the artist bringing the image from the void into fruition. This is what really interests me.

I work primarily in oil paint, soft pastel and charcoal. What I like about these media is their pliability. They can be put down onto the substrate and then manipulated, transformed, pushed around, or even removed if need be. I find this quality to be not only immensely appealing, but a necessary component to my artistic practice. I am not interested in hiding the act of painting in order to deceive the viewer into thinking that they are seeing something that isn't there. I want the act of painting and my engagement with the materials to be an integral part of the final image. Working with pliable materials such as oil paint, which will stay wet for several days, affords me ample opportunities to scrape and smudge, to mix and modify colors right on the canvas, and to sharpen or blur the transition from one shape into the next. I used to try to finish a painting whilst all of the paint was wet but over the past few years I have been experimenting with allowing parts of the painting to become tacky or dry and then working on top of them, achieving effects and a visual density that would not be possible any other way.

I have mentioned in previous posts how the act of painting for me often feels like being engaged in mortal combat. I like to think that the intensity and violence inherent in that struggle comes across in an image like this one.