In just over a week, the largest display this year of my artwork will be up for view and sale at Jack London Square Open Studios. I’m extremely excited to reveal a new series of mixed media drawings that I created for the dance performance piece House of Matter. The pieces will be presented in projected form in the theater, but you can view them in person at my open studio. I also have several new landscape paintings that occupy a realm between logic and oddity. I’m starting to see the themes and subject matter from my last five years of artwork converge in this new body of work. I’m started to experiment with representing the magnificent worlds of some of my favorite authors including: Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. LeGuin, Stanislaw Lem and Octavia Butler. The creatures, formations and environments from these visionary authors have begun to make their mark in my visual language as I occupy my mind with their audiobooks while I work.
While I have not worked in cut paper very much in the past few months, another series is coming. I plan on using my drawings in the Curiosities in the Multiverse series and the new House of Matter series as studies for new works in cut paper. I now have three modes of working that I absolutely adore: cut paper collage, figurative acrylic painting and my mixed media works on paper. After seeing the fascinating documentary Gerhard Richter Painting last weekend, I’m reminded how common and even healthy it is for artists to work on multiple bodies of work at the same time. I just want more time!
This is the first blog entry I’ve posted from my phone, in a moment of feeling the need to externally work out some of the trains of thought that occupy me while making art. This weekend, I’ll be rolling out several updates for the web site. Stay tuned for lots of new artwork, and I would be thrilled to see you for Open Studios. For those that have their own Open Studios coming up, best of luck! I love my Bay Area art community, it has been a truly invigorating year of artistic connections so far, and I hope the dialogue continues.