Below and Beyond

This painting represents a shift in style which I have been edging toward in my last few paintings. My hope is to create more expressive art through an intuitive or spontaneous painting process, rather than holding too closely to the realism of the motif. Here, gestures, shapes, figures, sky, water, grass are characterized, thereby inhibiting attention from being pulled away from the overall composition of the painting. I keep thinking about how the poetic truth of an image isn't in the details of a scene, and how abstract simplification allows the viewer to engage more intimately with a painting. Some of the most powerful and captivating stage plays I've seen had minimal stage props, leaving the audience to use their imagination to fill in the "details" of the set. Painting moves along more quickly for me now because of my intuitive reaction to the painting process; but I also spend much more time in the preparation stages, sketching out the composition, moving items around, planning the color and value scheme. I think the results show a painting that is more Art than replication.