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In these, as in
previous Reflected-Light Paintings, I work with light. I work with the glowing
radiation of fluorescent color reflected onto a plain white surface. My pieces
consist of extruded, aluminum rods, (trapezoidal in cross section), with their
rearward-angled sides painted in saturated colors and then mounted on a canvas
backing. The painting is in the form of a code, with lengths of various hues
corresponding to a stripe of colored light reflection being created adjacent to
it. Each rod represents a vertical segment of a composition recognizable only
when all the elements are mounted and perceived as a totality. The light-image,
as viewed from the front, floats, shimmering over the surface of the canvas.
This image is nonphysical, it exists in the gaps between the extrusions. Its an
image created in, and of, the shadows of the rods, an “Anti-Shadow.” The viewer
is constantly involved in the contradiction between paint and light, the paradox
between the physical and the perceptual sensations of seeing.
In the past my iconography ranged from strictly formalistic to geometric or
figurative themes, but in the "Heartland" series I found the ideal synthesis of
subject and technique. The aerial landscapes are pure light, and in essence,
pure illusion. The floating point of view is reinforced by the ethereal effect
of the light, and the distance is echoed in the hazy soft edged shapes which the
reflected color creates. |
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 Leonardo da Vinci
would have traded a major organ to fly as we do. Field patterns, cloud shadows,
and straight and oblique views of rivers would have delighted him beyond belief,
yet we peer down on them with little excitement. Not I, when I fly, I always get
a window seat. The views, some hastily sketched, some merely remembered, provide
starting points for my iconography. From a thought comes a drawing, and from a
drawing, a metamorphosis that results in a finished Reflected-Light Painting. In
1993, I stopped working on “Heartland.” My art lost color, and the black and
white of my “Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet” suite of charcoal drawings became
my palette for almost ten years. These “Heartland” pieces document the brightly
colored work completed before undertaking the “Fourteen Stations” suite.
Please scroll down and enjoy the
gallery below of the first Heartland Series of Reflected-Light Paintings.
Afterwards be sure to visit my gallery page of New Works which includes my
latest Heartland Series and then visit my updated Process Page which provides a
step-by-step tour of how both series of Reflected-Light Paintings were created.
I am certain that you will find each of these web-page galleries quite
illuminating. Enjoy.
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