Painting is really my thing when it comes to art making and it’s just been really painful to not be able to work at all. Oils are also my thing, but I haven’t worked with them since I lost my work studio soon after the dotcom bust of 2001 – something I have financially never recovered from. I also like to work BIG so it’s really difficult for me to get inspired to work small. I live in a VW Bus that I call The Escape Pod, but the pod is only so big – so painting on small sheets of paper is my new thing. I’m thinking of them as studies for my next series of BIG paintings when I get the chance to work in a studio again.
The idea of this series is that I am deconstructing my last drawing and painting series CONDUITS. I started working on these first as small drawings in my sketchbooks a while back but I’ve really been wanting to paint. I have been able to do a few studies in acrylic and messing around with watercolor – I’m not a fan of watercolor, nor acrylic, but I work with what’s available.
The color palette of the painted ones also harks back to some of my first abstract paintings I made in the 1980s. Maybe it’s a subconscious sign of starting over?