Show Announcement

Here's the announcement for a group show at the Randy Higbee Gallery, a two evening event.
My work will be included with the three artists above and I'm looking forward to seeing more of their work, each unique and different. There is nothing quite like seeing art framed and in person.
In addition to paintings, the show will also feature drawings.

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Chain Links

"Tanks, Wires, Well"  SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

The main feature here is not so much the tanks themselves; it's the new, the now, it is industry at work, oil being siphoned from the ground, stored, then transferred to refineries. Without it we are stagnant.

So a livelier composition, one that does not allow the eyes to rest, but instead bounce around. Crowded with tanks and trees, wires slicing diagonally, a tonally busy sky, animated shapes.
The wires represent the path of crude oil, from the well, to holding and eventually into our lives. Links in a chain.79
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Color Blocks

"BNSF #7236 (In Port)"  SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
3.5" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)

Two BNSF locomotives at rest in the port, (notice the two different BNSF logos), the busy port as shown by the background densely packed with shipping containers, cranes, light poles, the curve of the bridge barely visible in the upper left.

This painting is a study in patches or blocks of color in my deeper, less earthy palette. All the dark values lie in the upper half of the composition but the orange locomotives still separate from the blocks of shipping containers. Separation by color instead of value.

The hints of detail in the locomotives , the near rim lighting, and the indicated logos on the containers were all needed to overcome what could have been a too simplistic value composition, split across the middle of the picture plane.78
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Figure Study-Back

"Figure Study- Back, Seated"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
7" x 5" (17.78cm x 12.7cm)

Another quick study, the figure leans into the shadow. Here my intent was to get the overall shape of the form, although there is a suggestion of texture, there is no detail or nuance of surface.

Simple composition... arrangement of light & dark, concerned with mass.77
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Figure Study-Egg

"Figure Study-Scrunched (Egg)"   SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

A quick figure study. I like the figure when it is tightly contained, wrapped up or here like an egg. It seems to be both at rest and in a state of action. Perhaps action temporarily at rest. Not a reclining pose nor a sitting pose, not quite moving, but not fully relaxed, instead paused.76
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Low Growling Murmur

*with compositional overlay

"Harbor Line #72 (47 Bridge)"
oil on panel, 2010
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
NFS

In a low growling murmur, the #72 slowly crawls through the harbor on an almost imperceptible uphill grade, pulling a string of rail cars loaded with cargo containers, the 47 bridge as it's backdrop. Late in the afternoon, the sun from the left puts the sides in shadow... jet black. One of those days where the atmosphere is heavy and hazy but bright.

This location is wide open, a staging area for huge piles of dirt, asphalt and concrete used throughout the harbor for all the various construction and renovation projects.

The slight upward tilt as well as the heavy section of bridge bearing down convey the weight of the long train being pulled, even if unseen. Well fit to this task, the sturdy black locomotive dominates the horizontal composition.

Anatomy of a painting... structurally the image is made up of horizontal bands (rectangles), triangles and the forward leaning angles of the stripes. All serve the subject. As indicated in the *overlay above, the triangles point in the direction of the action, moving the train forward and through the composition from left to right. The stripes too seem to push the train forward, a thought the designers must have had in mind.

The horizontal bands of the foreground left simple but punctuated with tufts of grass and dashes of paint to set up implied lines also moving left to right. The blunt shape of the locomotive echoed by the same shapes of the trucks, it's smaller commerce cousins, in the background approaching the bridge.75
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Lazy Seascape

"Lazy Seascape (w/ 3 Rocks)"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

A summer seascape, the velvety water washing over the rocks just enough to keep them wet. The ocean almost flat until it nears the shore where the waves seem to muster up only enough energy to fold onto the rocky beach. This is nature at rest, much like ourselves in the summer, sitting back relaxing, cooling off from the heat of the day.74
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