photo - Matt Dunham
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In the later part of the 1900s I had been looking for definitions
and constructs to make some kind of sense of the changes and slip-stream
mentality of society and the virtual era we live in. Much like the
modern artists of the early twentieth century such as Miro, Klee,
and Malevich, I began looking deeply into my own inner being and
also to subjects outside the confines of my own culture. Through
this process I became interested in time, space and energy. The
ancient idioms, a time that's not a time, and a place that's not
a place was very important in opening the door for me to explore
the idea that past, present and future coexist at the 'same time'.
My imagination could slip between the cracks and play with the possibilities.
Even though this idea was difficult for my logical 'conscious' mind
to comprehend, I have found it interesting that contemporary physicists
have constructed computer models that support this abstract idea
about the nature of time. The paintings' layered surfaces include
heavy texture, scraped areas, fresh paint and milky veils which
allude to the collision of random sequence not found in the tightly
wound world of linear time.
These
concepts of time combined with the influences of my travel to other
countries have produced new interpretations in my work that explore
movement and a sense of place. Every country and culture adds something
new to my life and with these experiences come new twists in my
work. Earlier concepts and archetypal ideas that I had been working
with prior to my travels abroad were thrown out the window when
I was exposed to cultures that still embraced these realities which
had become dreams in the contemporary world of techno-cultures.
Abstraction crosses the perceptible boundaries and without having
specific objects or identifiable 'real' sources for subject matter,
it allows me to look directly at these diverse ideas in an intuitive
manner. Ultimately, I feel I am headed in a direction to make paintings
for the world. By blending western sensibilities of modern painting
with eastern philosophical ideas rooted in Taoism and Buddhism I
have been constructing contemporary mandalas that play with the
nature of movement and space in a densely packed turn of the century
free for all. In what other time could one listen to a tape of a
Mexican soul singer who lives in Canada,while riding in a Citreon
on a back road near the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.
