[This catalogue is published by galerie erich storrer on the occasion of the exhibition .] The Magnetic Field of the Brush As I consider these paintings which were done over the past three years, they strike me like the journal of a road trip, in which the road is painting itself. They are the melding of the gestural resonances with the states of feeling arising out of the image. I experience painting as a way of connecting to nature, history and culture and of sounding my personal relationship to the motifs I am pursuing. The way forward into an as-yet undefined present and future, also stretches backward pulling on earlier sensations and memories. Surface and gesture are inseparable components of the painting that impart a palpable texture to the visual idea. The image is conjured up from the inside of itself, and built out of the opposing forces within its framework. How the picture is made, how the artist moved inside of it, is the vital part of the narrative embodied within it. The search for the structure and organization of this surface is guided by the aim to reveal its suggestive properties relating to shared human experiences and consciousness. There is sometimes an «unfinished» or «work-in-progress» aspect which must remain. This quality of the search is vital to allow for the image to be open enough, less easily defined, so that it may have the power to reconstruct itself in the perception of the viewer. The direction these images have taken is based on my interest in fundamental forms, what some may call archetypes. Their essential nature is to communicate non-verbally, generating a direct connection to both personal and collective memory. In the case of these latest works, they are suggested by archaic masks and statuary, inspired by lifelong study and visits to sites of Chinese, Japanese, Hindu and Greek Art. To come back to the idea of these works as a journey, they feel somewhat like the Shinto shrines, and their «Dosojin» deities which are placed at significant route junctures. There is a book that I often go to: Basho’s «The Narrow Road to the Deep North». Its spare words strike like stones on a lake surface, stirring up waves of memories and corporal sensations which become ideas, then images. My desire is that the painting allows for a state of suspension, outside of a descriptive reading, that may invite the viewer into an intuitive connection to the process and origins of the image. () weiterlesen