Abstract & Bloom
The focus of my studio practice is no different from the practice of living—
a steady undoing, a constant letting go.
It turns in cycles thru stages of nothingness, growth, beauty, death—
like the flowers in the garden.
In the studio, I sit with the discomfort of not knowing.
Uncertainty is very unsettling.
Though ff I step aside, if I loosen my grip,
curiosity takes the lead, and something unexpected begins to breathe.
Abstraction is a strange one.
Nothing is known. Hence a certain uncomfortability exist.
Lots of falling down in the moment.
The only way to make a painting is through it.
Paint is layered, stripped, and buried again.
A razor blade, belt sander, dremel—tools of erasure.
Raw pigment, binder, silt; spread with worn brushes, a putty knife, or simply poured.
Colors chosen by intuition, not reason, sometimes I even paint in the dark.
Process is painting as verb.
Improvisation is constant.
And then, almost without warning, a painting arrives—
a noun, a presence.
The cycle continues:
curiosity, procrastination, patience, attachment, chaos, arrival.
Again and again, I practice the art of undoing.
Preciousness is surrendered.
And though everything is impermanent,
there is a moment
and perhaps even a declaration—
the painting exist.