SALTY

SALTY: A group exhibition about coastal towns & people & things is on view starting Friday, March 3rd at Meyer Vogl Gallery in Charleston, SC.

Solitude in the Shade (far right)

The lovely ladies at the gallery asked for a brief artist statement on these pieces so naturally I’m writing a brief novel instead…

Of the five pieces I sent for the show, I would divide them into two catagories: Fish & Beach.

Happy Fish (top right) and Yellow Tiles (bottom right)

Happy Fish (pictured) is a painting focused on being loose and playful and not looking. What I mean by “not looking” is resisting the use of a reference photo to help get everything perfectly accurate. With that boundary, I’m forced to trust my imagination; I’ve painted fish before and I can do it again and it can be different.

The light blue fin and tail, based no where in reality, but right where my imagination led is what the painting needed to feel finished. It affirmed me that it’s safe and good to trust my imagination throughout the creative process instead of relying too heavily on accuracy and control.

I’m smiling like this happy fish now because I just realized I bought a random T-shirt a few days ago while on vacation that says, “Imagination is more important than intellect.” And I think that about sums up what this painting means to me. Or this quote by Albert Einstein:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I scroll through Pinterest often for inspiration and this yellow tile stopped me in my tracks. I’m a sucker for subtle color shifts and I’ll bet you can see the connection here to Yellow Tiles.

It is fascinating to watch a color change when mixing it on my palette. Even the tiniest drop of red or blue or white can alter the yellow drastically or delicately, depending on what you’re after. Within this one yellow color family there are endless types of specific yellows. The yellows may look very similar apart from one another, but the moment they touch you can see how different they actually are.

Yellow Tiles, 2023.

Yellow Tiles is honing in on the practice of restraint in delicately shifting between colors on my palette, not making any changes too abruptly, while adding as many new yellows to my repertoire as I’m able. I’ve only scratched the surface.

Different Ways (bottom right).

Different Ways notes the influence color has on decisions made during the painting process. I chose two blocks of color I was curious to see next to each other and I painted basically the same slender fish on the top and bottom, letting the color lead me.

It’s comforting to know that when I put down one color, I’m led to the next color decision then the next and so on until the painting is complete. And within each color journey you can be taken in a million different ways of painting the same slender fish, reminding me that no particular way is the right way. You can’t mess up.

Chasing the Sunset (left)

Chasing the Sunset and Solitude in the Shade are both paintings set on the beach, one with an emphasis on movement and the other an emphasis on stillness. In both of these pieces I wanted to challenge myself to capture light in a way I hadn’t tried before.

Creating a world in which the shore becomes a mirror brighter than the gloomy dark sand goes against what would make sense.