Artist Statement

From experience I know that the process of creation is inherently intertwined with the essence of the final outcome. Being in the creative moment, listening visually  and letting this dialogue of energy create is akin to a dance of meditation. When something is done with passion, you feel that no effort is involved, and that time is like a vast, still space. A sacred awareness within us that exists outwardly without boundaries. Being in awe or allowing our sentient nature a place in the present. These to me are worthwhile ways to communicate when serving in one's  role as an artist. Within these experiences is a place that does not change. This is also where the 'listening' of the working meditation resides. I know this place well and whatever it is, it's the closest explanation I have for what could be understood as my subject matter. 

The gift or expertise of this art profession is giving the experience of transcending the plasticity of the material. This, in my understanding, is a powerful form of communication, one of the central forms of expression that gives art value. It's the aspect of an artist's skill set that I respect the most. This transcendence quality is what carries the subject matter. You will experience something of the above explanation in some way, shape, or form when you experience the original artwork. At the same time, I am also working with and evolving the structures of a visual language that is part of our biological inheritance. This could be described as an invention that formed itself. I think it's subtle yet revolutionary. The expression carries an entire visual language that's unexplored and could be seen as a breakthrough in evolving a way to use our perception. 

My responsibility is to present the art, nothing more. This is the visual language, and there is no real need to understand it in words. As luck would have it I have painted myself into a corner and now find myself in a linguistic nightmare. This written language with its emphasis on a left-brained neural network, meticulously dissects, creates definitions, and imposes categories miles removed from the transcendental and holistic visual realm in which I reside. Born from the realization that this art expression is being mistaken for abstract expression and the need to explain why the illusion substance cannot be captured in a digital medium. I have had to revert to words to defend the art 

It is quite upsetting to watch people judge your work who don't know what they are looking at and as a result refuse it any exhibition space. I feel like I am back at art school where you are forced to comply and impress to be approved and pass. This hinders you from getting to your client and your audience. One comment seemed to stick with me the most, stating that the abstract art was too complex. In defense of the art, the complexity is about information and diversity, and I agree this can be overwhelming initially.Your perception does not know where to rest. This does not last very long. Ironically, when you get used to the painting, it is quite calming. The expression needs as many wavelengths of color, complexity, and diversity of forms, marks, tones, and subtle layerings of structural interconnected compositions to be a work of art. Towards the end of completing a painting, it takes me half a day of just looking to see what work it may need. I am building and destroying, so I am bringing it out. To listen clearly, I need to hold it all in my mind. I am not creating a painting in the usual sense; I am creating a substance. My interest is on how well it will behave, and how vivid the visions are. 

A fundamental nature of this creative energy dialogue is that it flows in a direction. You feel like you are only ever creating one work of art. With each new work of art or collection, the expression reinvents and adds to this dialogue. I have a strong interest in the visions experience, a powerful connection between perception and comprehension, where the mind forms a holistic understanding in a moment. This new vehicle of visual expression embraces surrealist art in the way it aims to unveil concealed aspects of the psyche and the world. The profound difference is that it shifts the experience of the art image into the creativity of the viewer, allowing them to evolve their own way of seeing. A dynamic between artwork and viewer is formed that is quite intimate. I refer to this as a relationship because the artwork holds the imagery of your personal experiences. Obviously, it is still an artwork, and the power of the vision is as good as the artist. Seeing a specific pattern or image can be influenced by the context in which it is presented, allowing illusions, visions, projections, hallucinations, memories, fantasies, insights, and images to be experienced repeatedly in different ways depending on your state of being and how the artwork alters in changing light. They enter the real world and are experienced as such. 

The paintings are not pictures in the conventional understanding. They have been unintentionally designed to be lived with, in the sense that they fit with your consciousness. The work is in line with our seeking to alter our consciousness towards an ideal or higher state- a smart home with an intuitive and creative sounding board of art. Creativity is intrinsic to human nature. Our inner perceptions are individual and unique. The painting is a playground to communicate this diversity with each other, allowing a foundation for a visual type of literacy. Largely, we are suffering from our own projections- a separate ego narrative in the way of a true self. We replace reality with abstraction to some extent, possibly from that evolutionary fitness principle we're seeing what we need to see. At times the illusion is perhaps of a lesser strength, and we experience something closer to the truth of a reality. 

The substance is quite different from the pareidolia found in nature and other artists' works. Pareidolia is a nebulous, more random-like surface form- it's more of a picture than a language. Here, the surface holds the image, whereas the substance can behave as a type of hologram. Although unintentional, as this visual language is formulated for illusion to thrive, someone under the influence of psychedelics would have their perceptions amplified. Visual experiences are not static or defined; they exist in a number of spaces. Vision is a highly cognitive experience.The fluency of your perception increases confidence and appreciation of your own visual creativity. Our perceptions’ salient nature discovers accumulations within the substance that behave as symbols forming meaning. It triggers memories but alters them visually, offering unexpected perspectives in the present. This shift in perception involves a process of "letting be," where you are not trying to interpret what you see but rather allowing the artwork to reveal itself to you. We don't passively perceive the world; we actively generate it. Your brain is coming up with the best guess of what is actually there. We replace the structure of reality with the structure of language. Like our new world perspective, this artwork acknowledges the inseparable involvement of the observer.