For me, painting is an extension of my 18 years of Zen practice. When I paint I have no goal, which in Zen Buddhism is called mushutoku. Painting is something I do as a practice on a regular basis, with no intended outcome, and no thought-based content beyond the myriad decisions required while working with line and color.

Process, Line and Color

When I begin a painting, I have no idea how the finished painting will look. I lay down a meshwork of lines and shapes in a random intuitive way, very much inspired by the abstract expressionist Franz Kline. My spontaneous linear markings are guided by my sense of balance as well as an impulse to delineate and contain.

I’m very aware of the impact of horizontal lines versus vertical lines. I believe that these abstract elements have a powerful implicit non-verbal narrative component: horizontal lines create a restful, relaxing aspect, while vertical lines denote upward growth or movement. Diagonal and curved lines bridge the horizontal and the vertical. As I lay down lines, the complexity of the linear framework develops.

Direct references to nature and plant forms come and go in my work. In some pieces I introduce and repeat geometric shapes, stylized plant forms, water motifs and fragments of art deco textile designs. Painted within the delineated spaces, these appear to weave in and out within the picture plane, enhancing the illusion of spaciousness and adding to the implied narrative of the work. Emotion and intuition guides me to juxtapose colors within the chosen palette of a painting.

As I start to put in color I begin with a deeply intuitive nugget of emotion or feeling associated with a specific color palette I want to explore. I like to limit my palette. When I use new colors I use just three or four colors straight out of the tube. As the painting develops and I find that planes of color are going to overlap, I create new colors by mixing the colors of the overlapping planes.

In the past I have adopted the colors that appear in Japanese wood block prints - thalo blue, thalo green, alizeron crimson, raw sienna and burnt umber. However, my native palette - a combination of alizeron crimson, burnt umber, yellow olive, and sap green - stems from my personal experience and observation of nature. In springtime, veridian green, aquas, ultramarine, pthalo blue and violets appear in my work in anticipation of my annual trip to the beach. In the fall, yellow, along with the colors of the changing leaves, emerge. From time to time orange, my color for emotional turmoil, comes out. Lately I have been delving into the world of blue, violet and raw sienna, inspired by a recently purchased necklace of semi precious stones.

I do not use a palette knife; rather, I mix paint with the brush, resulting in endless variations of hue. Visible brushwork is important to me, as it creates texture and energy within the overlapping framework of intersecting planes. First, I roughly establishing the spatial relationships and overall balance of the composition. Then I develop the painting in layers. I like to exploit the vibrancy sustained from interposing complimentary colors, such as blue and orange. However, manipulating color temperature is the main device I use to develop the painting and create the illusion of space. Since the temperature of a color determines if it will recede or not, the illusion of spacial depth is created as I adjust the temperature and value of a given color passage at its intersection with its adjacent color, shape or plane.

As my work is very intuitive and spontaneous, it is my emotions that guide me along. While I continually make adjustments in value, hue and temperature, and work to balance line, shape and color, the painting evolves on its own and is completed through its own momentum. The result is an energized play of compositional balance and color harmony.

Influences

When I graduated from college and returned to New Orleans in 1981, I painted still lives and landscapes for a year or two. I was interested in a bold use of color, looking at the work of the post-impressionists - the Fauves, Gaugin, and the German Expressionists. I was greatly inspired by the work of New Orleans artist Allison Stewart. After seeing her vital and intuitive use of color and the creation of form from nothing, I wanted to become an abstract painter. I took courses at the University of New Orleans from Jim Richard and Richard Johnson. From a series of exercises in an introduction to two-dimensional design class taught by Richard Johnson, I learned the process and vocabulary of abstract painting. These exercises changed my life and continue to inform my work.

Within a historical framework, my two greatest influences are Japanese woodblock prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai, and early 20th century painting and design. I noticed that in the Japanese woodblock prints by these artists, the viewers’ eye is skillfully guided into the picture plane in a particular way. In my work I try to do the same thing by using lines or planes that extend beyond the edges of the canvas. Just as in Japanese prints, this creates a context beyond the confines of the work itself and has an energizing effect.

Within the western tradition my point of departure was the Impressionists. My interest quickly took me to the work of Cezanne, Gauguin, the Fauves and the explosion of creativity at the turn of the 19th century. Braque and Picasso painted together in the south of France in the summer of 1906. The proto cubist landscapes they painted showed me a way to combine landscape and the devices of cubism. In my work I slash the picture plane with random facets reminiscent of the cubists. Other painters in the early 20th century, such as the German Expressionists, used color in an original way.

But it is in the applied arts that I find the greatest inspiration. Art deco textiles combine the stylization of geometric shapes and plant forms using vibrant color combinations. In addition to enjoying archive patterns, the experience of looking at and touching fabric in my daily life is a wellspring to my creativity.