pulp paintings
I first became fixed on handmade paper as a potential medium that I might actually want to use in my practice when I realized I could use liquid, colored paper pulp to make my paintings, instead of using traditional materials as I had been doing.
Montserrat
Seeing Montserrat for the first time I was aware it was a thing to be reckoned with, a gigantic, imposing, animated presence. This mountain represents the land and people of Catalonia. Driving past, I stared without speaking so it could live in my head later while I was painting in Spain and then in Italy. The passion to work came from a chance exposure to an entity that made powerful sense to me. This work is new and I am still in the process of reflecting on that power.
Highland Paintings
The Highland Paintings are explorations of the physical qualities I have observed in the western Scottish highlands while riding on a train—1) the parallax phenomenon, due to myself being in motion while the great mountains remained still, and 2) the rhythm of the moguls leading up to the hills themselves.
Banner Paintings
The Banner Paintings are responses to the flood of new visual material I took in when visiting Japan for the first time, as well as reflections on the distance of that country from my own. These paintings each allow a tall, thin slice of information to come through with impact, paralleling my experience in Japan.
The Australia/US Painting
The Australia/US Painting was addresses global unity. I drew Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia when on a visit there, and combined elements of that and of my Penbscot Bay drawings. The painting began life as a collaboratively pulled sheet in Tasmania upon which I pulp painted the basic structure of the piece. Back in my home studio in Maryland I finished the pulp painting, which speaks to the shared aspects of both of these greatly affecting waterscapes.
Landscape Paintings
_sm.jpg "View the Landscape paintings slide show")
The Landscape Paintings represent aspects of the American west. Traveling in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico has shown me the most spectacular landscape and land formations I’ve ever seen. Pulp painting is a nearly visceral way to translate a visual inspiration into a tactile image-remnant. Anywhere from literal to abstruse, the paintings stand in for the real thing.