“Tropical Shade”
Oil/panel
24” x 18”
2024
There are a few moments in an artist’s life that are particularly magical. Sometimes it’s about a new way of constructing a painting that captures the right feeling or way of seeing the world. Sometimes it’s a new tool that provides this breakthrough. Sometimes it’s just exhaustion or a fresh perspective that sometimes comes with a new person in your life or a new place to paint.
This painting is the result of one of those moments and it is probably the result of all of those influences. On a basic level it is a new tool. Here I used a trowel and a scraper to liberally trowel a large amount of paint on to the panel. I tried this once before and didn’t like the results. But this time, perhaps because I had been painting with rollers profusely for days in a little shop in Thailand, and because paint is a lot cheaper here making the application of thick paint not a financial consideration, I achieved results that represent a serious breakthrough for me.
This piece captures the thick humid putrid weight of country air in Thailand. It’s the rainy season and the forest is now a jungle. The green is so thick and the shadows and undergrowth are black even in the midday sun. Everything is permanently wet and hot and smells like rot. Water drips from above the canopy and sometimes carries a glimmer of the blue Sky above.
After this piece, the sharp heavy trowel will share space with the delicate touch of my rollers.
“Tropical Leaves”
Oil/panel
36” x 24”. 18” x 12”. 18” x 12”.
2024
For me, it’s better to develop several paintings at the same time when I’m doing abstract painting. I included a photo of my painting wall here so you can see what I mean. There are as many ways to be creative as there are creative people. But one distinctive way that I create paintings is more like a dance. Sometimes I lead. Sometimes the painting leads. Sometimes I need to change partners and dance with someone else. The partners talk to each other. And if I’m treating everyone well we all have a great time and things turn out well. But that doesn’t mean being gentle the whole time. Sometimes bold moves are required. Risks are taken and sometimes it doesn’t go well. Things go flat or worse. But this is painting so not much risk of physical harm. No pulled muscles or broken bones. But it is messy. And just like good sex, things go much better if you aren’t worried about what happens to the sheets or how things will turn out.
“Mother In Law Tongue”
Oil/panel
30” x 24”
2024
“Banana Leaves”
Oil/panel
6’ x 4’
2024
This piece is considerably bigger than any of the other paintings I did in my little makeshift studio in southern Thailand. And indeed, I struggled with the scale. As it turns out, the quality of the visual experience hinges to a great degree on the relationship between the energy of a mark to the size of the painting it is part of. And clearly, these abstract paintings are as much if not more about the energy and impact of marks as they are about the subject matter which in this case is banana leaves and the landscape and atmosphere of this tropical city by the ocean.
At some point the painting looked “good.” However, it looked too bitsey piecey. All the little parts of the painting looked good but if you stepped back the painting didn’t have any impact. And it’s because the tools I used on this big piece were the same ones I used on the smaller ones. So, I made myself some much bigger tools and got the biggest brush I could find.
It also needed a more singularly bold direction. The larger tools helped but it was also important to not get attached to all the rich moments in the piece. At one point I considered cutting the panel into 6 separate smaller paintings. And that would have worked. But I was committed to making this large piece work.
The large lighter rectangle was what some artists would call a happy accident. When I went to buy more yellow paint I accidentally bought a tube of Naples yellow which is much brighter and paler than cadmium yellow. I decided to use it anyway and the result is what you see here.
Now, I feel the painting conveys how I think and feel about this place and works at the scale of 6’. But it also opens up a lot of creative possibilities. It doesn’t take a genius to see how these same tools and approach could be used to express my sentiments about the Northwest where I live most of the year. Autumn is coming soon. There will be all kinds of leaves and gorgeous colors to draw inspiration from. The skies will be a cold bright blue and the landscape will fall into darkness.
There is one drawback. This is a very “paint heavy” technique. And paint in America is expensive. I may need to fill my suitcases with tubes of paint.
“Pattaya”
Oil/panel
18” x 12”
2024
This is undeniably landscape driven art. It’s also driven by the idea that letting go of the details and allowing the lessons of abstract expressionist’s essentially Kantian approach to art become the vehicle for capturing something deeper about a place and time. Kant was a European philosopher from the late 19th century who had a huge influence on art. Essentially his ideas drove artists to move towards abstraction based on the idea that a thing should be what it is … not something else. In other words, painting is paint…not storytelling. With the advent of photography and the printed word, he reasoned that painting was freed from the burden of depicting a likeness of grandma or telling her story. A studio photograph and a newspaper article could do those things.
Well, there is some truth and power in that line of thinking. And I love some of the ever increasing abstract art that it produced including the abstract expressionists who were arguably the purist manifestation of these ideas.
I have tried to harness the power inherent in that line of thinking to tell a story that can’t be told with writing … at least not normal writing. Perhaps poetry could accomplish this. And a visual impression that photography can not capture, except by an artist who is using his tools as I am.
Unlike the purists, I don’t claim any exclusive providence. I do know, that these little paintings that don’t document a damn thing express my deeper impression about the place than any of my snapshots and letters home.
I suppose it’s my hope that by looking at the paintings one will develop an eye for and an understanding of this other layer of awareness. Furthermore, I admit to believing this has both aesthetic pleasure and inherent value.
Thank you Mr. Kant and all the artists that were inspired by his thinking and who have inspired me. I hope you don’t mind that I am returning to an approach that uses landscape in my paintings as a vehicle to carry my viewer to a deeper awareness.
“Jomptien”
Oil/panel
30” x24”
2024
“Jomptien”
Oil/panel
24” x24”
2024
“Jomptien”
Oil/panel
30” x24”
2024
“Jomptien”
Oil/panel
24” x24”
2024
“Jomptien”
Oil/panel
24” x 18”
2024
I met an American guy in a coffee shop in the middle of one of Thailand’s most notorious sex tourism areas, Pattaya. There, in the middle of sin city that would make Vegas blush I made friends with a 68 year old MAGA retiree from Southern California over coffee and our shared love of people watching and art. Turns out he made his living owning and running 60 minute film stores before they became extinct with the advent of digital cameras and smart phones. But underneath that was a frustrated photographer with a highly developed sense of aesthetics and ideas about what made for real art.
Well, he has a 3 story town house and the ground floor is a kind of mishmash of auto repair equipment and woodworking tools. It is a complete mess and sweltering hot. But it’s just 10 minutes drive from the beach and about the same to the nearly 24 hour circus on the streets.
I found myself with 2 weeks between wrapping up my sculpture in the north of Thailand and the next available cheap flight home. So Mark offered to clean up his “garage” so I could paint. And as it turns out, the best art supply store in the whole area was at the end of his street and just another block away was a hardware store. Within hours I was painting.
The work looks a little like the paintings I did in Hawaii a few years ago. But the weather here is similar. And there is a similar battle between the tropical growth and humidity with the anxious drive to build and trash the place. The clash of straight lines from buildings and roads with natures hot mess is similar here to what I saw in Hawaii. To be sure, this is not as pretty and that is showing up in the work.
At some point I may get to painting the people. It for now it seems best to focus on the collision of nature and humanity.
“Winter”
Oil/panel
24” x 24”
2023
Mud and Sky. Snow and ice. Aquifers and mountain tops. Neat rows and swarthy scrum. The gesture of the hand and the design of the tool.
A symbol and a landscape. Such is my desire to take pleasure with my eye upon the landscape and my mind at work in consort with my memory in the studio. A walk at Twin Falls, a drive to grocery store.
“My Carbon Silhouette”
Oil/canvas
30” x 26”
2023
We hear a lot about our carbon footprint these days. How much carbon does my trip to the grocery store pump into the air if I drive? What about those used shoes I bought? Is that fewer carbon whatevers than if I buy new ones? Do I get a brownie point for that? Can I trade that for a plane ticket to Spain?
But what about our carbon shadow? The subtle darkness thrown against the pristine landscape, hardly noticeable at first. Yes, that’s me. Slowly emerging on the canvas. No, it’s not actually painted on the canvas but captured in the act of seeing it and photographing it.
I will let you decide if it’s better or not with the silhouette on it. Or whether it could really count as art if it doesn’t exist outside of this photo.
I think my impact on the environment is more like a shadow or a silhouette. Subtle. Almost imperceptible by myself but emphatically there and impossible to not see once you realize it. Darkening but not exactly a stain and hopefully not permanent.
“Winter”
Oil/canvas
24” x 24”
2023
Winter in the Northwest is the quintessence of elegance. The colors are muted to the point of restrained harmony and the blues retain their hue saturation creating a cool punctuation. No hot pink or reckless green of the tropics here. But the sky will luminesce while the land and sea darken. Dusk lingers for hours and the sun rarely asserts itself with naked abandon. It’s cold, but not freezing. No one wears a black wool long coat here like I did in Manhattan because the horizon does.
“Winter Solstice”
Oil/panel
12” x 12”
2023
On December 21st 2023 afternoon became translucent grey as a million nearly microscopic water droplets descended from the Sky. Seattle’s soaker rain. The sun never got above the buildings to the south when the curtain began to close. Sky is called fog when it touches the ground. For an hour it hovered low enough to obfuscate the roof tops while the city slipped below before the black envelope of night closed earlier than last night for the last time this year.
I went to my studio and made this painting. I left the light on.
Reference Painting: Wheatfield with Crows by Vincent van Gogh, 1890
“Sawadee Kup Vincent”
Oil/panel
14” x 14”
2023
I walked for hours along the rice paddies of Isaan in northern Thailand. The rice was knee high and so green I thought it would glow at night. The rows created a rhythm offset by the cadence of the shifting size and direction of the paddies. If I had the courage and endurance of my predecessor I would have set up an easel in the heat and humidity and painted. But instead I squeezed my water bottle, soaked my T shirt and pushed on.
Eventually night would come and the fields would cling to the light just a little longer than the Sky… a strange reversal from my home in Seattle where the Sky stays light while the land darkens.
What I couldn’t shake was the mud…so rich and vibrant … like burnt Sienna squeezed from the tube. I saw it running down the rivers right through Bangkok to the sea. The rich fertile soil is washing away and soon the rice patties will burn.
“Isaan”
Oil/panel
30” x 24”
2023
About 150 years ago artists began making paintings of landscapes that looked less and less like what a landscape looked like and more and more about what it made them think and or feel. First there were the impressionists with their impressions of the landscape. Then there were the post impressionists with their use of the landscape to make statements about the singular power of color or the fauves with their use of landscape to communicate strong emotions. Then the cubists with ideas about multiple ways of seeing or conceiving in a singular moment and how empty space and solids were interchangeable. Then came conceptual art followed by abstract art which wasn’t landscape even as an idea. It was just paint on a canvas. If it happened to look a bit like a landscape that was certainly not the artist’s intention.
Most of these “styles” also came to have a distinct look. And it was this “look” that eventually landed us with post modernism where the style itself is the subject. Landscape as a style.
Up until this part it can be said that the works of art all have an earnestness about them. They all seem sincere in what they have to say. To be sure, there are stronger and weaker works within any given period. But once it became about style itself, the sincerity seems to have leaked out leaving only a dry ironic cynicism.
I have had this feeling about post modern work for awhile now. And I have often wondered if it had to be that way. Could the work be about style itself and still have qualities of sincerity.
I have also wondered if this is the modern equivalent of the mannerist art that overtook Europe for awhile after the Renaissance artists too much detachment from nature. One would even be tempted to say that perhaps it was a result of too much privilege. It wasn’t until artists returned to a direct confrontation with nature that art was revitalized in what we now call the Baroque era. Interestingly this vital period was followed by another seemingly superficial period called the Rococco, the era that gave is the decorated birthday cake….but also gave us Mozart.
In this painting, inspired by my stay in a part of northern Thailand called Isaan, I have incorporated many of the approaches or styles I refer to earlier. But I did them from the standpoint of wanting to communicate as much as I could about the way this fascinating place looked to me visually but also culturally and with respect to my memories of other places both in Thailand and abroad.
Memory, whatever that is, is perhaps the thing that drives the sincerity. I really want my memory to be at play in the present moment. Not just a dusty dead box in the back of my mind where it secretly goes on coloring what I see in secrecy. No, I want it up front in the open adding gorgeous layers of intrigue to what I experience right here, right now.
“Isaan”
Oil/panel
30” x 24”
2023
This is one of those pieces where I stopped at just the right time. It barely works. But it is that tenuousness that’s makes it worth looking at. Yes, there is the conceptual layering of different views and aspects of the land. Yes, there is the energetic vibration of the land in the loose and gestural application of paint. And the colors….wow….so spot on with the vibrant green rice paddies and bold blue Sky. I can almost feel the 95 degree heat and 98% humidity. Those are the hallmarks of my abstract art these last 10 years or so.
But here, for whatever reason, I trusted the process and left it raw. You just barely see the mountains. And it’s barely discernible that you are mostly looking at rice paddies. You only barely get a feeling for anything beyond the visual. And yet….you do. And it does cohere as a painting. But more importantly, I can’t stop looking at it. And so, here it is.
“Isaan”
Oil/panel
20” x 14”
2023
Isaan is a region of Thailand in the northeast. It is a rising plane that is largely given over to vast rice patties and other agricultural farming. Culturally it is a blend of Thai and Laotian language and customs. And it is a cross roads of modernization and feudal like farming traditions. It is poor but full of hope and potential.
I spent some time there recently exploring a world heritage site known as Ban Chiang which is famous for its centuries old ceramics. In addition to the rough beauty of the traditional pottery I was struck by the landscape and how it envelopes the eye and the culture. In addition to a virtual endless parade of romantic scenes of weathered farmers hewing their ancient tools and livestock, there was the sea of green and layers of poverty, ambition, fatigue and confusion literally baked in by the relentless tropical heat and humidity.
There was also the heavy sky which sometimes dumped several inches of water in a matter of hours and distant mountains shrouded in haze or sheets of rain.
This painting was done in my studio in Seattle just days after returning from Thailand. I don’t think I could have done a more realistic painting of the feeling of Thailand than this even if I set up my easel in the middle of a rice paddy and set to work. It would have looked more like what I was looking at, but it would not have any of the things I felt and saw while moving among the endless miles of stunningly beautiful landscape but also sitting at humble makeshift diner tables sharing meals and beers and conversations that lingered long into the night, and strolling between the ramshackle markets outside the Western style supermarkets and Home Depot versions of do it yourself hardware and lumber stores. Even driving in Thailand is its own cultural experience where the rules of the road are more like the rules of the dance floor.
There is also the vivid vibrancy of nature in the tropics alongside the murk and gray of industrialized poverty and ecological degradation. How does one squeeze all of that into a painting? And how does one do that without seeming preachy or didactic? Or even without overshadowing the pervasive feeling of hope and possibility?
By not trying too hard I suppose. By working one’s craft in the blind hope that maybe it will work. But most of all…by being fully present while there. Eyes wide open. But more importantly…. mind wide open. And one’s heart too.
“Soaked in Blood”
Oil/panel
24” x 18”
2023