My work is rooted in realism but it has many influences outside that general description. Surrealism has influenced my thinking. Representations of altered reality, fantastic images of the imagination like those painted by Salvador Dali. And more subtle visions like Andrew Wyeth. I like when my work combines a high level of draftsmanship with the energy of painters like de Kooning and Bacon. Art is my super power. Drawing the figure is what I like best but any subject matter can be interesting to me.
The relationship between artist and subject is fathomless. It is eternal, it is the same phenomenon expressed in countless ways. My best work is accomplished when this process is tuned in and sharpened through practice. The more time I spend the presence of the subject, observing, drawing or painting the stronger my decision making becomes and the better the work I can create. Being truly original is a high bar to meet. I don’t know if I am all that original. Genius and originality in art are ideas I have great suspicion of. I prefer to strive for excellence and let others decide how original my work is.
A statement I’ve heard attributed to Wassily Kandinsky says it best, All painting is abstract, all painting is representational. He says, The problem of form has two main roads, the great realism and the great abstraction, leading to one goal, which is the expression of the artist’s inner meaning. Form itself is meaningless unless it is the expression of an artist’s inner necessity and everything is permitted to serve this end. It’s an idea I think about often.
Why DSpace?
Why Dspacevt? Good question. I watched lots of Doctor Who growing up. Specifically I watched lots of Tom Baker episodes. When the fourth Doctor regenerated – now being played by Peter Davidson – his companions at the time were Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. Adric is a native of the planet Alzarius, which exists in the parallel universe of E-Space. It became a sort of inside joke among the Doctor Who fans in my orbit that anyone could claim the first initial of their name, add ‘Space’ to it and you have B-Space, C-Space or D-Space as appropriate. Put it in the context of something funny or awkward you’ve done, and you can claim to be like Adric who is from a parallel universe and have all kinds of grace extended to you on account of you’re not really a local. I know this does not make much sense especially if you are not a Doctor Who fan but it’s the best explanation I have.
The VT at the end is because I live in Vermont, USA.
The url dspacevt.com was available. I was ready to snatch it up, and so here we are. When the congressional hearings ensue to get to the bottom of why I chose this url hopefully I will have saved some time with the above explanation.