“I want my paintings to get you up off the couch dancing,

like when a great song comes on the radio.”                                                     

                                                 Lisa Dawn Gold

ABOUT THE FIELD PAINTINGS

     A few years back I wondered if I were to paint flowers, what might mine look like?  What could I possibly contribute to all that had come before and how would they embody my own concerns?   There was such a long tradition of artists using the subject motif of a flower.  Most important was how not to fall into the territory of trite? 

     My first small flower studies were done initially just for myself and then easily given away to the many causes and auctions I support and sold for a fraction of my regular artwork.   What I did not realize - these small early more traditional flower studies would then become pivotal works for my more contemporary versions that evolved over time.  The multi-panel canvas paintings contain the concept of interchangeable canvases.  In these works the panels can be moved into different positions creating multiple works within one piece.  

A FEW FLOWER ARTIST:

Vincent Van Gogh  (Activated)

Claude Monet  (Light and color)

Gustav Klimt   (Elements for a jewelry box)

Pablo Picasso  (Deconstructed)

Georgia O’Keefe  (Iconic and sensual)

Roy Lichtenstein  (Cartoon Print)

Robert Mapplethorpe  (As sculptural form)

Joan Mitchell (Abstracted energy)

Donald Sultan  (Flattened shape)

Louise Bourgeois   (Red Family Quaches)

Andy Warhol   (Silkscreened graphic)

Donald Baechler   (Childlike simplification)

Ellsworth Kelly   (Minimal linear)

Cy Twombly   (Dripping giants)

Damian Hirst  (Encased)

Takashi Murakami   (Smiling)

      I believe every painter just wants to make a good painting.  So, to choose to do that in a medium with such a long tradition in a new and contemporary way, all the more challenging.

     My recent field paintings that walk the line between realism and abstraction, sum up the very essence and basic issues of all painting.  Is not every painting a field of some kind whether minimal or quite active?  Whether it is literal by Claude Monet, or referential and structural by Hans Hoffman, Gerhard Richter, Robert Motherwell, or Andy Warhol: all paintings are a field for the eye to dance around.  So naturally I thought why not use the reference of a real field which encompasses every possibility?   In the making of these paintings, like every painting of every subject I make, the concerns are the same.

    Maybe some of life's path in the bigger picture is possibly the quest for wisdom, learning, and spiritual enlightenment?  My professional artistic explorations have yielded a body of artwork during which I have looked and learned from many teachers.  Recently, influenced by the Native American’s who see “the forces of nature” rather than “the objects of nature”, I have so enjoyed, the Wind, the effects of all weather and nature’s forces that makes things come alive!  Even from my early kinetic works, I have always been drawn to work with a life force, never stagnant.  And influenced again, it is said from a living Indian Saint, Amma (Amma.org.), that the Divine reveals itself in many ways, nature being one.

     For better or worse, there has been an overwhelming positive response to these graffiti sprawled, wind blown field paintings.  And for myself, there is always the curiosity of where they will lead.

STUDIES & EXPLORATIONS

Reversible Canvases  2 in 1