Researcher Summary
Given its vast and complex history radical shifts within painting are limited or subtle. As Picasso once noted, “No artist ever invented a new shape”. Painting currently operates within an expanded field of pluralist activity. An activity beyond stylistic progression and ranging from grand schemes to diary-like entries into which any number of ideas, mediums, moods, or traditions can enter. My recent research considers abstraction and how it can operate as a Rorschach or gestalt. The painting's beginnings are often prompted by the likes of photography, cinema, or literature. A figurative or literal point of departure is usually reduced or compressed to impart a mix of migrating forms and collapsed histories. The works embrace shifting modes of expression guided by personal reflexivity while striving to evoke an associative or empathetic response in the viewer.
