Select pieces from my Tribe Series and Portraits of Sculpture Series are on display for the month of March at LOCAL in Silverlake (www.silverlakelocal.com). To celebrate, LOCAL Chef/Owner Jason Michaud is hosting an exclusive “Meet the Artist” dinner on Sunday, March 28 at 8:00PM. Michaud will be personally cooking a three course prix fix menu for only $24! Vegetarians welcome and LOCAL is BYOB. HOLD YOUR SPACE now by calling LOCAL at 323.662.4740
About the Tribe Series
These paintings represent my response to the rapid urbanization in my old neighborhood in Jackson Heights, Queens, I was drawn to a particular construction site where, silhouetted against a crystal blue sky, there was a group – a tribe of sorts – of steel girders. While some stood perfectly straight and ready to serve the next phase of construction, others were not yet in their “proper” position and still more were piled randomly.In spite of their precise structural sameness, each girder that day seemed to exude its own unique identity through color and position. Within days of observing this scene, the individualism within this tribe had vanished as the construction moved forward and alignment and uniformity prevailed. The loss, and recapture, of individualism and identity has personal meaning to me. It reflects my artistic youth overpowered by a ten-year corporate existence, and my reawakening to art and a creative life in 2001.
About the Portraits of Sculpture Series
Is a shadow an object? What color is a shadow anyway? These are some of the questions confronted in the Portraits of Sculpture Series. Through my observation of sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, Constantin Brancusi and Julio Gonzalez in museums from New York to Los Angeles, I was fascinated by not only the beauty and power of the forms, but the quality and complexity of the shadows they cast when on display. This led to experiments in my studio of the influence of light on my sculptures. This investigation yielded an array of drawings and paintings that chronicle the symbiotic relationship of three dimensional forms and the shadows they create. By using a monochrome palette during the conversion to two-dimensional artwork, the distinction of what is object and what is shadow becomes ambiguous and lends support to the notion that there is more going on than meets the eye and that our casual, surface observation of things often falls short.
About the Tribe SeriesThese paintings represent my response to the rapid urbanization in my old neighborhood in Jackson Heights, Queens, I was drawn to a particular construction site where, silhouetted against a crystal blue sky, there was a group – a tribe of sorts – of steel girders. While some stood perfectly straight and ready to serve the next phase of construction, others were not yet in their “proper” position and still more were piled randomly.In spite of their precise structural sameness, each girder that day seemed to exude its own unique identity through color and position. Within days of observing this scene, the individualism within this tribe had vanished as the construction moved forward and alignment and uniformity prevailed. The loss, and recapture, of individualism and identity has personal meaning to me. It reflects my artistic youth overpowered by a ten-year corporate existence, and my reawakening to art and a creative life in 2001.
About the Portraits of Sculpture Series Is a shadow an object? What color is a shadow anyway? These are some of the questions confronted in the Portraits of Sculpture Series. Through my observation of sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, Constantin Brancusi and Julio Gonzalez in museums from New York to Los Angeles, I was fascinated by not only the beauty and power of the forms, but the quality and complexity of the shadows they cast when on display. This led to experiments in my studio of the influence of light on my sculptures. This investigation yielded an array of drawings and paintings that chronicle the symbiotic relationship of three dimensional forms and the shadows they create. By using a monochrome palette during the conversion to two-dimensional artwork, the distinction of what is object and what is shadow becomes ambiguous and lends support to the notion that there is more going on than meets the eye and that our casual, surface observation of things often falls short.