Profile
I was liberated by the resurgence of representational painting during the years of the East Village art scene in New York in the late 1970s having previously focused on minimal canvases. Standard realism did not seem relevant to the time and place, nor were expressionistic effects compelling. Neo-geo did seem attractive but also limiting. Postmodern juxtapositions were very intriguing. Subsequently, I broke the line between realism and abstraction. This allowed me to write a book, Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques, that fostered an impulse to integrate abstract painting concepts with realism.
Statement
My project is to discover a polished realist painting that builds on past artistic discoveries – such as abstraction, modernism, cubism, and surrealism. Realist painting is only one method of seeing the world, focusing on superficial appearance. Realism can be reimagined in a way that operates with an intuitive sense of compositional balance.
Combining realism and abstraction is but one way I’m working to create a synthesis of differing styles. Often, the composition mixes memories from various times and places. The important challenge is that these disjunct areas relate to one another – any juxtaposition isn’t arbitrary. My more recent mixtures aim to tightly weave the realism with “something else” – as opposed to simple juxtaposition. The important challenge is to have these visual languages speak to each other – to resonate- and the realist area is calling to the abstract for assurance.
Another compositional technique is to combine a realist image with its “double” – showing the image from another angle, reversing the colors, or altering the orientation. Employing compositions that represent an image painted by hand twice showcases the limits of human painting skill. Compared to mechanical reproduction (photographic or digital), the doubly hand-rendered painting is never exactly correct. The inexactitude and mistakes are part of what makes the physical labor a subtext to the subject matter. Different representations of the same subject are combined to expand the idea of “what is reality.”
Yet another update to the tradition of realism is to break up the painting surface with textures or other elements that accentuate the objectness of the painting – a more sculptural realism. This is achieved my using non-flat panels, introducing real-world elements such as hardware or simply building high-relief paint areas. So, at one moment you are viewing a painted version of a three-dimensional scene and right next to this is an actual physical object.
Finally, what is the point of making realism relevant in the context of the past one hundred years of art moving away from realism? Precisely because it is possible that when disparate objects or disparate ideas can be held in meaningful relationship with one another, a comprehensive unity can be created. This engenders some sort of enlightenment.
The technical practice is straight forward: Traditional oil painting on either canvas or panel. The works are realist renditions of photographs I have taken – nothing borrowed from other sources. Digital editing of the source photograph is done before projecting this draft onto the panel. Abstraction and realism are meshed to spotlight their common ability to evoke space and texture. These paintings are composed so that visual densities – textural knots – move and shift across the surface. Within this general framework, personal experiences – objects and places that hold special meaning – are rendered in detail. It’s a form of devotion.
Recent works can be viewed here.