LANDSCAPES
With this relatively new body of work I am folding back into a previous set of imaginary landscapes from an earlier allegorical period. Here they are based on my own travel photography, which I use as reference for lines and basic shapes. From this source material, I play with abstraction and memory. While in the process of painting these landscapes, I am able to be somewhere else, to travel again, to revisit the places I’ve been.
Working on these paintings allows me to try a variety of new approaches to handling paint, and the results can be clearly seen in the backgrounds of many of my stuffed animal portraits. What began simply as studies a few years back is now growing into an extensive body of work, which will eventually include larger pieces.
The above two paragraphs were written in early 2012. Two years later, and I can see that the landscapes are becoming expressive of something deeper going on below the surface. They, too, are evolving into metaphor. But not always.