Alluvion (conversion), 2004-05.
the surface from the shore (detail).
the surface from the shore (echo), 2006.
cut portrait, 1990-.
cut portrait, 1990-.
soap strata, 2001-.
soap strata, 2001-.
The "Surface from the shore" paintings developed out of the earlier "Alluvion" paintings.
The intense layering of the "Alluvion" paintings suggested expansion,
an opening out of the plane,
a colonization.
As all of my work progresses by addressing contradictions,
it was inevitable that paintings using the same process
but arriving at an opposing endpoint would be produced.
Using the same tracing of informations (cartographic representations),
the canvas is mapped
with white on black
until the imagery
escapes its previous specificity
and can hold the plane successfully.
After an initial varnish,
the painting is re-entered
and in a long process of glazed accretions,
enshadowed.
Each layer is separated by a coat of varnish,
the implied shadows created through this process,
drawing up and over previous information,
producing new
identities and localities
within the original plan.
As these paintings continued,
an identifiable sense of domain,
of territory,
developed from within.
The painting's
visual claim
acting upon remembered locations,
points of identity,
familiarities from the physical world
and from the space of histories.
A review from a show in 2001,
described the environment created by my "Cut Portrait" photoworks
as having pulled the identity of the individual back into the plane,
figuratively engulfing the sitter
within the incidentals of the photograph's "weather".
This could describe the actions
taken upon the original cartography of the "Alluvion" paintings
in order to produce
the "Surface from the Shore" works.
This same idea of an active background
that controls the flow of the information
offered by the nominal subject of the work
is found in the "Soap Strata" photoworks
that were produced at the same time.
The dark enshadowed surface
of the paintings and the imagery
trapped and/or
revealed within,
are very much like the frozen surface of a lake,
peered into,
the sticks and leaves of the fall creating a memory,
an untouchable terrain.
Most importantly, the paintings enact a space
out and away from their origin,
encoding their genesis in a depth of procedure,
a layering of interferences,
tensions across the surface,
the conflict between the environment
and the reflection of the environment,
of experience
and the attempt at conveying that experience
within languages set apart.
