Art is... OK & Company

For me making art is similar to the tasks of the alchemists or shamans of old. The task is to elucidate a vision that is the melding of rational construct and an imagery that has been refined by studies of myth, folk tales, metaphysical texts and emblemata, and art history. Also important are the dialogue of image/object and the relationship of illusion to the materials taken as such.

I try to use my work to give an intimation of the nature of the sacred by invoking a sense of mystery. Very often a kind of unease vaguely felt in the presence of an image some how slightly askew. The person experiencing a work can be opened to possibilities symbolically and intuitively in the arcane juxtaposition of archetypal and iconic images. I try to work with landscape and architectural/geometric elements as well as figures and faces, in combination, to provide images, which hopefully transcend cultural and religious stereotypes. At the same time I try to include references and quotations from mythic tradition to open channels for an inner dialogue with one's own connection to humanity's cultural and spiritual origins, as well as the planet itself. This dialogue can be as simple as the color and depth of a cloud filled sky over a valley, or the turn of a brow and a knowing glance.

These images are constructed evolutionarily. I try to start with a fairly generalized sketch or idea and allow the image to change in process. This involves going from a loose, gestural, initial drawing and following and elaborating upon the accidents and suggestions presented. This establishes a visual conversation in which the image's ongoing imperatives and dynamics are responded to and refined, much like bringing the image in a camera's viewfinder from a soft blur to focused clarity. The questions of the nature of visual data and the relationship of illusion and material to the physicality of the medium as such, are also expressed in the process. Image construction /evolution and the aesthetics of rendering itself are thus, necessary addendum or pentimenti to the work