You seem to be taking full advantage of the lockdown. And you’re doing a great job in each and all your paintings and I don’t want to miss studying and reacting to each one of them! You truly have a unique and special way of seeing and appreciating your world and we are all luckier because you share it with us. I admire your perseverance and the progress you’ve made in mastering your technique and depicting the things that interest you and that catch your interest.
In your Redbud trees I can see that you painted your house with the precise lines and perspective and architectural features that you use in all your building paintings, and you placed it in the center of your canvas which is always a dynamic composition, but obviously the focal point of this painting is the two redbud trees which just explode in a riot of bold color that the canvas can’t contain within it’s edges. The flowering buds are unconfined, unrestricted even as everything around them is tamed and disciplined in their man made forms. I get a feeling of childlike joy at the wildness and unsuppressed renewed birth of Spring after the moody quiet of Winter. The rendering of the trees seems to reflecting emotion over form. It has a touch of abstract expressionism. It’s emotional in the best way.
Your paintings are all showing your comfort with your tools and subjects and the ease that comes from confidence. And they show you adding elements that are new but that you choose because you’re open to expressing more of what interests you. So far you’ve been open to what makes you grow and evolve as an artist. Your paintings also show an appreciation and respect for the subjects you paint.
Your cameras sparkle now as you explore the different ways light shines on the different materials used to make them. You’re attuned to how light is reflected differently on glass, leather, metal and plastic. You’ve mastered the depiction of light shining on the cameras as well as the intricate forms, angles, structures and surfaces of the mechanical aspects. Your addition of patterned cloth enhances these paintings. I love the juxtapositions you use in your still lives between three dimensional realism with the two dimensional settings. It makes your paintings of objects quite unique to you.
Your Magnolia Sunset is attention grabbing for various well done aspects. Again light is a strong theme in the way you depict it interacting on the Magnolias themselves. The light is diffuse, shining through the flower petals in a soft way that makes them look like their glowing where the light hits them. As in many of your paintings of the details in nature that capture your attention you are interested in the angles and shapes within a part of a larger landscape. The straight and angular criss crossing of the branches stand in contrast with the soft curves of the flowers and you integrate them in a very dynamic and pleasing way as everything is intersected and cut off by the edges of the canvas. Unlike your depictions of the cameras and buildings there is nothing centered in this painting. The viewer’s eye travels off and back onto the painting in an intricate voyage that makes you absorb the other details in the background. As always your colors are fantastic, though I don’t always say it for each painting.
I also want to say something about your painting of the old factory I saw the last time you posted your paintings. It’s been on my mind since, which is interesting because it depicts a time when the industrial era was in full display in this country. We thought it was permanent because it gave us a feeling of growth and economic expansion, but as you show in the painting it is a dying era, no longer relevant except as a reminder of another time. It’s a reminder that time passes. That we have moved through a bit of history without even being aware of it. In your blurb you actually say you wanted to paint it before it was gone. Again you show you value historical buildings and want to capture them before time destroys them. The factory which once stood large and imposing with smoke billowing out of it’s giant stacks and shiny windows and behemoth presence is now only the bare bones and silent derelict decomposing reminder of a time already past and gone. It’s haunting in the way it caught my interest. In its time it was also a harm to nature and we learned that and abandoned it without bothering to destroy it. Your paintings of old building structures are a testament to the passage of time and history.
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