Painting

---

My first large watercolor-on-canvas marked a huge shift in my work. From 2004, I’d been struggling to get good results using oil color mediums. My first attempt was a self-portrait that ended up being part of a triptych titled Every Part, a Reflection of the Whole. The three self-portraits were painted with little attention to hue and focus on value, thus they became sort of "holographic" due to the use of arbitrary color. It was this holographic effect that determined their title, since a true hologram can be divided ad infinitum, and each division still retains a copy of the whole image. The main portrait and the full triptych, won “Best-of-Show” awards whenever they were displayed. It was this success that propelled my shift to a medium that I was able to manage.

Midway through earning my BFA, I began a series of work involving the small toys found strewn about the home that one becomes accustomed to when they are raising a child. I became obsessed with several of my son's new belongings - especially their texture and vivid colors, which translated well to the medium of watercolor-on-canvas. 

The thought was to make them "monumental” by invading a space and offering a relationship to the viewer, not unlike how the walls were seemingly closing-in within our home full of toddler ephemera. It was a good kind of invasion of previously alien objects. Welcome to the Universe is a large watercolor painting that stands 7' X 6' tall, and is a blown-up version of a stacking-ring toy made with various fabrics. Sadly, it remains in storage...too large to hang at home. My ultimate goal with some of these larger toy pieces may be to start a group-funded campaign to have them properly framed, and eventually donate them to a children’s hospital. I believe that is where they should find a final home to be enjoyed. 

My son is a teenager now, and he can't possibly understand the joy of being a new father, nor how fondly I think back on that time in my life. Nothing has ever brought me as much joy as simply playing with my son when he was just discovering the universe. The paintings from this series never fail at bringing back fond memories of that time in my life. 

I intend for my artwork to be accessible for younger viewers, yet still contain conceptual possibilities for broader audiences. My current work is playful and often pulls imagery from the world inhabited by children. It is also inspired by my interest in thoughts, dreams, and memory.  Additionally, it incorporates ideas from personal intrigues ranging from astronomy, quantum physics, biological and cellular functions, the ancient Maya civilization, to alternate states of consciousness. Much of the subject matter is highly symbolic allowing for a personal visual language that has hidden meaning and content. Creating this way lets seemingly unconnected ideas connect and manifest visually through painting.

Imagery that can imply several concepts simultaneously is appealing to me. For example the hexagonal shape typifies both molecular arrangements and honeycombs. Symbolically they suggest family structure and stability. Further, the upward and outward motion of drips denote the biological function of plants growing toward the sun, the direction of space travel, and are directly influenced by Salvador Dali. Specifically, they reference his painting of a dripping coffee mug or the melting clocks in his famous work The Persistence of Memory. Contrastingly, floating cloud forms with arrows pointing both upward and downward communicate a union of both micro and macro dominion. The cloud itself signifies our relationship to occupying the space between the atomic and celestial. At the same time they illustrate that what is above is also below and correspond to the ancient Maya belief system of upperworlds, underworlds, and an earthly plane of existence. Pictorially I am also showing microscopic structures in our brains such as neurons, and microtubules. The latter of which have been hypothesized by the physicist Rodger Penrose, to be linked with the phenomenon of consciousness. All of these images compose a mapping of thoughts and memories within a dreamlike atmosphere where connections do not necessarily make sense and yet still have meaning. Ultimately, I am depicting what a snapshot of a person’s thought processes might resemble. By showing typically unseen realms that organize our world, I allow the invisible to become visible.

I have utilized scale and medium so that the painting unravels as the viewer approaches to see imperfection. Using watercolor, I can take advantage of controlled mistakes, splatter, and brushstroke so that representation can still be about painting itself. In addition to watercolor I have been using various materials to create spirals. The amount of time that it takes to produce one gives way to a rhythmic pattern of meticulous repetition both physically and mentally akin to a meditative state. It is this contemplative state that becomes inseparable from the spiral and upon examining the process I appreciate that they characterize thoughts rolled up in time.  These pieces, especially the canvas spirals, eloquently question the boundaries between painting and sculpture as well as “craft” and “fine art.” 

-David

The final As Big As The Sky piece ended up encompassing a 20 x 40 section of the museum wall, parts of the floor that were painted, another 25 foot painted section of wall - with paintings interspersed as if flowing out continuously and inseparable from them, and a spiral stairwell housing sculptural elements and painting on the circular walls which extended to the museum level one floor above! The wall sections were comprised of 8' x 4' and 4' x 4' feet Masonite panels coated with the exact same wall paint as the museum. The panels were worked on with watercolor while lying flat on the ground in my home studio. They were then transported and installed over top of the museum walls, acting as a skin so that they blended in seamlessly with the existing space and could later be removed and preserved. It was a huge amount of work to install and my father helped get them in place days before the opening. Several separate framed paintings and paintings on canvas such as "Structures of Memory" were actually incorporated into the overall piece with painting bleeding out onto painted wall panels which were installed behind them. A large 4-foot diameter canvas spiral occupied the circular ground within the spiral stairwell leading to the museum level above. On the walls of the stairwell painted flies rose up the walls, visible from the upper museum level. Stuck in to the canvas spiral were upturned dried plant vegetation (hemp roots - to be exact). It took a lot of man-hours that entire spring and was thrilling to finally take it all in when once displayed. I'm extremely happy how it turned out and for the guidance of my painting instructor at the time, Dragana Crnjak, and the museum staff at the McDonough that were beyond accommodating. 

*I'm still trying to locate a few images and video of this large-scale piece. I've included several pictures of the work in progress in my home studio prior to the installation. 

As a break between painting mammoth watercolors, I always had canvases or canvas board at-the-ready for large "sketches." The frogs came from reading something in a physics journal about their ability to detect a single photon of light with their eyes. I thought it was a fascinating little bit of info and ran with it. I'm still waiting for someone to write a children's story that could utilize the imagery of the simple doodles. I planned to gesso over them, but ended up keeping them over the years. Who knows?

The inspiration for this body of work started with the idea to paint world leaders and personas using waste and paint. I desired to express the gravity and/or magnetism that certain people possess, or possesses them, by their image alone. This can be an embodiment of complete evil or perceived saintliness. Working on the portraits simultaneously, with dirt and various trash that even included my own beard hair, presented interested challenges. It was not only execution of the idea, but also in questioning if I should. After remembering the 1987 work of Andres Serrano entitled Immersion (Piss Christ), in which he displayed a crucifix inside a jar of urine, I figured I wasn't pushing any real boundaries.

The quest to paint people with personas that evoke powerful reactions, was often met with disdain and queries as to my motivation. Considering the climate of 2005 relative to the events of 9-11, it made the Osama Bin Laden piece particularly loathsome to some. While this wasn’t the intention, it is hard to argue that such a visceral reaction wasn’t the point of the series. Indeed, both hideous and benign souls reflect humanity, parts of ourselves, and the paths taken by amplified voices that have literally changed our planet for both the better and the worse. Our connectedness is reflected in both what we worship and vilify. This is where art combines with the open-mind - to glean the human experience of the collective contributions of both good and evil.

This body of work caters to the idea that no one is innately the complete embodiment of good or evil. Other contenders for this series would include Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Stalin, Marin Luther King, Mr. Rogers, Jesus Christ, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, and more currently, Donald Trump. Each of these people, whether one loathes, loves, or admires them, tend to have something intangible found in their facial features. It is possible that these enigmas have facial structures which are simply more interesting than that of the average person. Or, perhaps the true interest is caused by the baggage their images evokes for us. Contestably, for example, Bin Laden has an undeniable beauty to his image; appearing both ghostly yet, undeniably human. His charisma combined with a sinister cunning, is notable. It was these qualities most noted by the late Professor Al Bright, my teacher and mentor, during his critique of this work in progress.

Unfortunately, this series isn’t finished. It ended at the portrait of Adolf Hitler due to the birth of my son, and my need for a break from "heavy" conceptual work. There is nothing like bringing a new human-being into the world to make one question the world in its entirety. Additionally, there has been some discoloration over the years from using particular materials for the gluing of dirt. This can be seen most clearly on the George W. Bush piece. Hopefully, the inspiration to return to this body of work with both a new angle and worldview, will find this series completed in the future.  

The truth is that we all depart this mortal coil to return to dirt and earth. I'm reminded of a few lyrics from a Tom Waits song "Dirt in the Ground": 

"What does it matter
A dream of love, or a dream of lies?
We're all gonna be in the same place when we die
Your spirit don't leave knowing
Your face or your name
The wind through your bones as all that remains
And we're all gonna be, yeah
I said we're all gonna be, yeah, yeah
I said we're all gonna be, yeah, yeah
I said we're all going to be just dirt in the ground.”

Spiral Installation works on the Installations page. 

More about the canvas spirals here.