INTERRUPTED AND UNEXPECTED
As coral reefs have taken on a profound role in my current work, I have all but left behind paintings from above the surface. The colors, shapes, and patterns of coral reefs are infinite, the design opportunities are all but unexplored in contemporary painting, and the subject is both profound and beautiful. This subject is so exciting to me, sometimes it's almost hard to imagine painting anything else. I still paint Nansi, but those paintings mostly remain private.
Coastal and Open Water paintings:
The ocean remains beautiful even when I resurface. Sometimes, I still paint her from a warm, dry place.
The ocean remains beautiful even when I resurface. Sometimes, I still paint her from a warm, dry place.
FLORAL AND STILL LIFE PAINTINGS: Why fish and flowers? It's easy for me to look at the body of work here and imagine the viewer asking that question. Art of the ocean has been my world for over a decade, and underwater scenes have stolen my attention ever since I first donned SCUBA gear and dropped into the liquid blue. The solitude of my life during these years has been soothed thru my new connection with Nansi Bielanski, and the blooming of our love has expressed itself in the way all things ultimately do for me: on the canvas. In the case of the floral's, they are a love story between the two of us- some personal and some collaborative, but each a celebration of finding love in mid-life and having a chance to start over with designs on a happy life together.
Interestingly, the more Nansi and I dive together, especially at the coral reefs of the Caribbean, we find that flowers on land are incredibly similar to animals below the surface. Soft corals are so plant-like that even knowing intellectually that they are colonies of animals it's hard not to think of them as plants, even undersea flowers. The moods, colors and forms of each inform the other, and flowers and oceans start to all become one beautiful subject, one story. Our love of the oceans and our love for one another first coexisted, then overlapped, and now are beginning to merge on the canvas as our story lengthens and deepens. It is a personal journey, but also an intellectual and artistic journey, and it is the ride of a lifetime. These canvases are our footprints from a
joint expedition to beautiful places where we have never been before.
Interestingly, the more Nansi and I dive together, especially at the coral reefs of the Caribbean, we find that flowers on land are incredibly similar to animals below the surface. Soft corals are so plant-like that even knowing intellectually that they are colonies of animals it's hard not to think of them as plants, even undersea flowers. The moods, colors and forms of each inform the other, and flowers and oceans start to all become one beautiful subject, one story. Our love of the oceans and our love for one another first coexisted, then overlapped, and now are beginning to merge on the canvas as our story lengthens and deepens. It is a personal journey, but also an intellectual and artistic journey, and it is the ride of a lifetime. These canvases are our footprints from a
joint expedition to beautiful places where we have never been before.
