CONTEMPLATION: Circles. Relating and Intersecting
( Heavenly Bodies, Celestial Phenomena, Point, Present and Infinity )
The past three years, my studio work has been focused in a series of developments called: Spirit of Place as Muse, with the most recent work named “CONTEMPLATION: CIRCLES. Relating and Intersecting”. The tall standing, three sided obelisk form, that was given as a starting point for each artist in this outdoor collaborative project, will be the inner armature that secures a new series of paintings, that continue my work with circles for contemplation, as visual geometric source, in a new way, to adapt to this pre-determined, collaborative group approach to an art work. Along with this form, given as a structural starting point, I will maintain the continuance of the flow of central values, philosophies and ways of working that have been consistent in my professional practice as a visual artist for many decades.
My painting process currently integrates local New England earth based materials; coastal sand, hand ground ancient volcanic rock and coastal shell with oil based pigments, varnish and glazes, into spatial, minimalist abstract paintings. These paintings are visual compositions which combine circles, point, line, planes and space, within a square frame. They are primarily monochromatic paintings made with a palette of mixed tints and shades of blue, with added subtle variations of earth tones produced by the hand ground natural earth elements. The integrated textural earth elements expand upon the palette of light and dark blues, with flecks of sometimes iridescent black, coral, silver, ochre, brown, copper, rose, translucent quartz, opal, turquoise, raw sienna, and burnt umber. These transformed earth elements are integrated throughout the building up of layers of paint and glazes upon the 3’ X 3’ wood panels.
Circles, as a geometric visual language of space and form, have been a primary element in my 3 dimensional and time-based work, since the eighties. Drawn on paper with traditional media, on the ground with sand, stone, mirror, shell, glass or plant elements, and as transforming and kinetic sculpture, of movement within space, …the basic forms of circle, point, line, arc, triangle, square, wave form, spiral, plane, and the relationships between these forms in space, are the visual forms through which, that which is intangible and not visible, manifests through, and becomes visually present, and that which is formless, becomes form.
In 2019, I was an invited fellow to an Artist Residency at Bird Hill Farm in Central Massachusetts. My personal life was integrating unexpected stress and crisis, in relationship to the unexpected, health needs of a loved one in my family. The work that emerged during this period of tremendous grief and loss, was a large series of small paintings that were reduced to one, two three or four circles, in relationship to its position in a stable, contained, limitless space and ground of being within the square frame, or in relationship to one, two or three other circles, within a shared unified, limitless space. During this time, I revisited many sources of study, contemplation, reflection and practice, which include t’ai chi, qigong, chi running, meditation, conscious breath-work, and circles in art, philosophy, spiritual traditions, natural sciences and astronomy. A few books I spent time with from my library were, Art and Physics, Parallel Visions in Space and Time, Leonard Shlain, Cosmos, The Art and Science of the Universe, Roberta J.M. Olson and J.M. Pasachoff, Yoga Art, and Tantra Art, Its Philosophy and Physics, Ajit Moorkerjee, Sophia’s Body, Seeing Primal Patterns in Nature, Rowena Pattee Kryder, PhD., Mandala, Luminous Symbols For Healing, Judith Cornell, PhD, Mandala Symbolism, Carl G. Jung, Hilma af Klint, Paintings for The Future, Tracey Bashkoff, The Spiritual In Art, Abstract Painting, 1890-1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Agnes Pelton, Desert Transcendentalist, Phoenix Art Museum.
I continue to find the stable value of, and need for, on many levels, ongoing continuation of studio work, with the development and evolution of this new series of Circle-Wholeness-Integrative-Unity based, artworks;
CONTEMPLATION: Circles. Relating and Intersecting
( Heavenly Bodies, Celestial Phenomena, Point, Present and Infinity )