Coming into Being

Educare 2003 Private collection

Halleluia! I just finished a nomination award application. It took several days of long hours to respond to questions about my work, challenges to gaining access for my work, and what I would do with 25K!  I submitted 20 images spanning 30 years of art making and explained the significance of each turning point in my work in less that 300 words. That's why it took so long.

Here's a snapshot:

Describe the nature of your work, its content and/or meaning including how it has evolved over time and what technical, cultural or other details will aid in its understanding.

            In the early 1980’s the mark became a significant aspect of my process. As content, the mark represents an affirmation of being, an awakening to wonder and a record of consciousness.  It is a persistent concept through the various investigations in my practice.

             Following a residency with Miriam Shapiro in 1983, I began a brief investigation of identity with the figure as a subject. Vigorous charcoal marks on large sheets of paper surround an anonymous female figure grappling with an inherited hierarchy.  The drawings visualized my claim to identity as an artist.(1-3) 

            In 1990 the endangered Florida Everglades renewed my interest in landscape as content. The mark articulated the infinite and lively expanse of the Everglades while a black pool and red sky suggests finitude. (4)  

         

            In 2000 I moved from landscape to explore a space defined only by shallow fields of color interacting with a screen of marks. Emptiness, ambiguity and spatial conjecture characterized these gestational works. (5-7) 

            By 2007 I was making large-scale paintings crowded with colors that competed for attention. (8-9) The scale and congested compositions became overwhelming so I retreated to making small works. The smaller works from 2009- enabled me to define and understand the nature of the space I was seeking. (10-13)

            The new paintings trace the relational aspects of abstraction both across the surface and within a deeper space. Each painting contains a set of relationship that interact on a ground that advances or retreats in relation to the brush marks. I work to subvert expectations in a process that allows for a fluctuating reading of what I call an abstract narrative. The relational aspects function as a coming into being. (14-20)

Now the wait begins. Announcements in June.