Chaos and Cosmos
My work is a meditation on the patterns and forms in the natural sciences, explored through the process of drawing and painting.
The imagery I use suggests the natural world and its state of constant change, especially within the realm of biology and geology. After using a variety of tools to apply layers of oil and cold wax mixtures, I create the topography of the surface through carving and the re-collaging of the medium onto a wood or paper surface.
Is is through this continuous additive and subtractive process that I create my surfaces slowly over the course of many months. This layering and removing of the materials evokes a sense of the constructive (cosmos) and deconstructive (chaos) energies that exists at all levels of nature, revealing the essential balance and creative tension that exists between the two.
Wherever I experience the variations of nature and its processes, I pay close attention to the diversity and complexity of the forms and structures. Every possibility exists here, yet new ones are constantly emerging in the ever-changing combinations of the simplest of elements such as carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
I strive to make my own process about this same kind of discovery, stretching to encompass every potential of what I can do with my mediums which include oil paint, cold wax, sand, silica, cedar dust, resin and other materials. I find it exciting to think that perhaps there is no limit but only a continuous pushing outward into a new array of possibility.
This process I use in my oil-based work is quite different than the more simplified approach found in my work on paper, but the inspiration and influences are the same, and the sense of vast potential I feel with this work is equivalent.
Paul Klee said “The true artist does not work from nature, but like her and in her.” In the same way, I let my way of working be like the nature that inspires me. I savor the journey of making as an end in itself, and in the process come to know myself better through gaining a deeper understanding of the natural world of which I am an inseparable part.