Works in progress, mostly oil studies
These images are a visual biography of times and places that I had to leave. They show the building of a new self through deliberate aesthetic acts in the face of an unknowable future. Although many objects were lost in various ways through dozens of moves and transitions, the photographs of these objects were often the only thing I was allowed to keep.
I lived and worked in many places over about 15 years. In each of those I made gardens, grew plants, arranged objects, noticed butterflies and then took photographs. I am making paintings now based on this large body of photos, collected over time, that were never intended to be a body of work, just a captured moment, in the moment, of something that brought me joy. The selection is based on what feels like an unpacking of history and selfhood.
These are precious objects and scenes from times and places that shaped me in profound, and not entirely safe or pleasant ways. They are paintings based on photographs taken by a version of me that had no view on how reality would unfold. I was creating or recording these moments of beauty for my own sake, and for their own sake; even in the most transient of places.
The paintings are the recognition of a coherence that was there all along.
Oil sketches and works in progress from precious, if transient places