The work is about pure painting: the simple truth. It is a convergence of color, shape, stroke, and line. With the intention of building something from nothing come emerging symbols, faces, things and noticeable images that reveal themselves. I paint from myself, not from an object, a clever thought, trend or gimmick. I construct and deconstruct until I unravel an abstract portrait. I do not analyze, strategize or conceptualize anything. I paint, build, layer, let the painting happen, and follow it. I call the body of the painting the groundwork. I call the second layer the framework, and the third layer the depth of field. This also provides a hierarchy of the different forms as well as maintaining a dream-like quality. All of this is done through what I like to call the Free Association Process.
I relate to the school of thought/process from the periods of Miro, Motherwell, Picasso, De Kooning, Kline, and Pollack. While a photographer captures one single moment on film/digitally, I paint moment by moment until I see and feel I have all the right moments captured on the canvas, so much so I can call it finished. Then, I see a grid-like abstract life portrait of things I have not seen before. I won’t allow myself to transfer an image, an object, or an idea to the canvas. I am not interested in that. What I am interested in is allowing something to happen, something that was not happening before, that does not already exist. The work then is ironic and intuitively forming; breathing with a presence of its own and features the element of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions. I call this liberation of imagination.This new body of work revives abstract surrealism. It comes from everything I have done up to this point. I have applied a new technique on top to give it strength, representational imagery and depth, thus making the work more profound. With this, I hope to give the work a presence that will not allow the viewer to take more than a glance. The work should both evoke the senses and provoke thought so that the viewer is caught in a trap of revealing imagery and emotion. Each viewer is dependent on their own perception and experience, thus leaving each with their own theory of what they see, feel and their unique thought processes. This might be one of my favorite experiences as a painter, that each viewer has their own personal experience with the work.