PAINTINGS ON PAPER AND PANELS - 2011-2013

After producing a large series of labor intensive wood relief paintings I began a series of paintings, in 2011, consisting of oil on gesso paper. This gave me the ability to work faster and to experiment more freely than I could do using wood. Working on paper allows for more free-wheeling shapes and openess in the design of the work.

I began making the paper pieces by using a technique similar to what I had developed with the wood relief painting, using a collage technique for making elements and gluing them together with the larger shapes. However, as the series of paper paintings has progressed, various other techniques, including just painting directly on the paper, have started to present themselves. At the same time, I’ve also made some pieces painting directly on wood panels without relief or collage.

The subject matter in these new works still reflects my interest in the nostalgia for childhood, which seen from a distance retains its innocence, juxtaposed with the complexities and excitement of our contemporary life. I’m conveying the conflicted feelings we experience by longing for the simpler past with our desire to be up to date in the fast moving and complicated present. As things change, and we change, what used to be takes on a almost dream-like quality, as memory is selective and never exactly true.