Artist Statement | Resume | Biography
Artist Statement
| The basis for this series of paintings was the passing of our 15 year-old beagle, Emo. After he died, I became less concerned with contemporary aesthetics and more concerned with feelings I had about his life and death. Emo was white, black and tan, and I tried to emphasize those three colors in these paintings. I accented those colors with color memories I had from each year of his life such as the red of a barn he tromped through. I wanted to tell a story in paint; I wanted to tell Emo's story. This memorial was a departure for me. I had been doing representational shadow portraits for close to eight years before beginning this series. At the time of Emo's death, I either painted over shadow portraits I had begun or started new paintings for the series. I don't know how the paintings translate to the viewer, but I believe that the autonomy of the paint handling captures my intent to celebrate and mourn him. After Emo died, I let go of the figure and embrace abstraction. In recent years, I visited Abstract Expressionism and Automatism exhibits at The Walker Art Center, Minnesota, and The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, respectively. I became more and more influenced by the freedom and expressiveness of form found in those exhibitions as time went on. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had always wanted to move on to a more expressive imagery in my own work, and Emo's death shocked me into this. |
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