“I don’t think artists have particularly bright ideas…" [What do they have?] “I guess their talent of painting things...” Willem de Kooning
A harsh critique. Probably true.
These paintings are dialogues of unknown pictorial languages, the imagined artifacts of human interactions with unseen or extra-earthly civilizations.
Inspired by the idea of the monolith in Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odessey", the new work attempts visualizations of moments of human awareness in which some new insight or the birth of an idea emerges from the morass of one's racing thoughts and dreams or prior knowledge and understanding, and intend to function as couriers of those moments and to locate them in some time or place or some state of mind.
Precise translations of the work remain open ended. What I hope for is to relay something of that sensation one experiences when encountering some new idea or discovery for the very first time.
Below are some works from 2023-present:
The Recognition of Self, 18"x24", acrylic, oil, charcoal, oil stick on panel, 2023
The Birth of Reason, 36"x 36", acrylic, oil, charcoal, oil stick, on canvas, 2023.
The Birth of Logic , 36"x 36", acrylic, oil, pigment, on canvas, 2023.
The Ratio of Logic and Reason, 36"x 36", acrylic, oil, charcoal, on canvas, 2023
The Birth of Ideas, 36"x 36", acrylic, oil, pigment, oil stick, on canvas, 2023
The Discovery of Time, 36"x36", acrylic, oil, charcoal, gold, on canvas, 2023
The Organization of Predictable Events, 36"x36", acrylic, oil, charcol, on canvas, 2023
The Dawn of Weapons and Tools, 36"x36", acrylic, oil, gold, charcoal on canvas, 2023
The Reification of Gravity and Inertia, 36" x 36", acrylic, oil, pigment, charcoal on canvas, 2023
The First Moment of Lost Time, 36" x 36", acrylic, oil, dry pigment, on canvas, 2023
The First Use of Hammer and Tongs, 36" x 36", acrylic, oil, charcoal, pigment, oil stick, on canvas, 2023
The Interaction of Wakefulness and Dreams, 36"x 36", oil, acrylic, charcoal, pigment, gold leaf, on canvas, 2023-4
The Consideration of Extra Dimensions, 36" x 36", oil, acrylic, charcoal, dry pigment, on canvas, 2023.
The Selection and Use of Appropriate Tools, 36" x 36", oil, acrylic, charcoal, pigment, on canvas, 2024
The Discovery of Magnets, 36" x 36", oil, acrylic, charcoal, dry pigment, encaustic, enamel, on canvas, 2024.
The Authorization of Alloys and Steel, 36" x 36", acrylic, oil, silver leaf, charcoal on canvas, 2024
The First Summary of The Theory of Everything, 36" x 36", acrylic, oil, on canvas, 2024