“No ideas but in things…”

William Carlos Williams

Beginning in the 1980’s, I began to think that ordinary objects were full of existential meaning and that no matter the artist, era or style; no matter the intent the conveyor of intention was a thing. Picasso’s Guitars, Duchamp’s Windows, Klee’s Fish but also Rembrandt’s costumes, Leonardo’s table setting and all Northern Painting of the 15^th and 16^th Century bares witness to Williams’ maxim.

I have tried to think of the epitomes of our era and which objects are characteristic of our unique time and place. Because of the pervasive nature of the mass media the world seems to be rife with calamity and disaster.

Hazmat suits, goggles,  life preservers and plastic garbage bags are the stuff we are made of.

These are all optimistic objects which speak of survival.

Ever since the 1980’s I have worked in Series format. It seems to me that one painting alone cannot do justice to a complex theme. My influence here is of course Thomas Cole but when I was a student, it seemed to me that all my favourite artists were working in Series. Everyone from Johns , Marisol, Dine and Warhol and later Close had staked paths which emphasized the continuity and interrelation of themes. Of course the work of Alex Katz, Alfred Leslie and Philip Pearlstein often was inherently serial in nature but so too were the paintings of Dekoonig, Kline and Reinhardt. I think that “TYPOLOGY” is one the basic categories of thinking  and therefore working in series makes profound sense.

Below are some of the paintings I have been working on in a Series called Syrian Refugees.

In recent years my paintings have explored the precarious relationship between Technology and Nature.

In our time, Climate Change has given way to a Nature that can no longer be seen as separate and apart from extended objects.

The 2012 Tsunami and the Meltdown at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant is a case in point; The tsunami was made more dangerous by the human-made events before and subsequent to the great wave. In the aftermath an army of workers dressed in paper suits went about to measure and to clean up after the devastation with shovels and even sticks— a puny response but a revealing one.

I am interested in these responses because I believe they reveal who we really are despite our advanced technological civilization.

Although I do not use the term “Realist” to describe these works, Art History informs my work. In the Nineteenth Century the Industrial Revolution had caused cultural anxiety. In Europe, positivist thinking produced Realism; In North America, Thomas Cole warned of the decadence of Europe* in which hubris had led civilization to ignore Nature and was thus, in peril. He developed a painting style in which narrative and philosophical discourse was embedded in Landscape. His optimistic outlook advocated for a “Development” in which Civilization and Nature would seek balance in the New World; although he was too optimistic, he realized the central tension in North American painting in every genre that was to follow.

* The Course of the Empire Cycle

Ice Floe, Saint John River, 2011.

    The refugee Crisis in Turkey, Iraq and recently in Europe has created a new category of the dispossessed; grandmothers dressed in black sometimes with face covered clinging to children they are  compelled to comfort while their parents find work or food or shelter.