Fleshing It Out

i've been asked a lot recently (both on the radio and by others) about my newer paintings, what they are about, why so many of them contain kitchen scenes, etc. i'm trying to figure this out myself.

these paintings were all made within the last year once i got a studio set up here in washington. when we left LA, i was working in an abstract manner, using memories of my daily experiences driving around town....that meant i was looking at landscape, the outside world around me: neons, car crashes, wildfires, steep hillsides, tropical gardens, smog. once i got to work here in DC, i took that way of working that i had developed (really paying attention to visual experiences on a day-to-day basis and making an effort to file them away in my memory, then working from memory without outside references) and applying them to my daily life and studio work now. so, that's resulted in a greater attention to interiors and working from my memories of other dwellings i have lived in or had important experiences in. my focus has been on working on our house, and that has come out in my work too. i seem to be gravitating towards kitchens, maybe for the reasons i talked about in the audio clip. they are centers of intense work and creativity, just like a studio. they are rooms we associate with good things: nourishment, love, family, social connections. there are also just really complex places to look at, so many nooks, crannies, nobs, bells, whistles, etc.

the bold black lines and messy paint and patterns are a compositional device. i think they are also a way to convey the way memories are incomplete, incorrect, and very hard to get down on paper like they appear in your head.

so, that's me trying to articulate my thoughts as of now. i'm headed back to LA for the weekend and am interested to see how i will perceive that city this time around. ciao!