Artist Statement

(Modus operandi.)

“A keyboard is not a good place for me to think. Some people think very well on a keyboard. I need a fidgeting of charcoal or scissors or tearing or something in my hands, as if there’s a different brain that is controlling how that works. There’s an imprecision so that what you do, when you look at it, is not to know something in advance which you are carrying out, but rather rely on recognizing something as it happens.”

-       William Kentridge

In an English class we typically hand in a rough draft that gets mauled by red pen, handed back, and thrown away. We never see it again. It is inferior. This is not the way the mind of a painter works. We think with our eyes. Our red pen is a paintbrush. Or whatever thing we can get our hands on at that particular moment to make a mark on a surface. It is important to look at and be impacted by the work of other artists, and even more essential to examine the way an artist feels about the reason they make their work. This is sometimes where the dialogue between us stops. I feel that the writing of an artist is just as inherent in understanding their images as the work itself. William Kentridge struck a chord with me. His drawings are more representational than my work has become in recent months, but his mark-making is just as urgent and impulsive.

Fresh.

The artist feels an urgent need to make things, and that need becomes very evident in the work itself. When this sense of urgency pervades the piece and connects with the viewer, the dialogue can be ongoing. It can inspire.

There is, for me, an inherent need to be hands on. In the studio I can be myself—a complete and utter world-rocking mess. Cleanliness represents sterility. Doctor’s offices and waiting rooms are sterile, and they are the most boring places in the world to me. I connect with things by touching them and altering them, and letting them alter me. My work is in a state of constant change. I go through phases as an artist, and this phase is probably the most exciting one I have ever been in. The current body of work I am working on is, and forever will be, incomplete. I would like to think that I can come back to this place and visit, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome.

This post is tagged Abstract, Large, Multi-Panel