1979 Dutch Harbor series

A fierce gravity energizes Dutch Harbor, of multiple reflections and spatial depth. A threatening clarity of long sharp shadows became the lethal mood of inertia and bareness. The sea, that immense counter point to the immense sky, is a vast barrier, a deadly force, an unbreathable drowning pool of crushing weight.

The shadow, a Japanese symbol of mourning became a symbol for the 9,000 Japanese who committed suicide during the Battle of Midway. The traditional Japanese belief is that nature is a continuum of the whole, a form of immortality, as traditionally associated with the rise of civilization. I tried to convey the distinctively “dark” light of the region. The nature of appearance suggests a flurry of motion and energy. The forms appear almost to disintegrate, as the images verge on the abstract.

The darkish paper is called “porridge paper,” which was all that was available after running out of paper in Alaska.

I started these compositions reflecting on a less tranquil aesthetic with particular emphasis on water and shadow. Both ephemeral and familiar, a stratification of land serves as a framing device for a lexicon of personal and universal, of a cyclical narrative. The cross, a prominent symbol in the wireless telephone poles serves as an ultimate metonym, reverberating throughout culture as the marker of the dead.

110. AFTER THE RAIN

27 x 35" Sold

107. THE WHOLE DAY WILL TUMBLE AND OUT THE NIGHT WILL SPILL

51x 70"

Castallani Gallery Permanent Collection, Niagara Falls, N.Y.

I incorporated Illusionist rain on the floating portal heads. The painting became a surrogate human presences, both sentient and inanimate. Influenced by Yves Tangny’s 1929 painting, “The Look of Amber Color being a degree of darkness, which was the most part of the 24 hr. day. I painted a palindrome or shifting times of the day. The night sky offers sure signposts and a system of knowledge and orientation by which we can know our place in the universe. Stars, hallowed in blue, black, violet sky and dry-grass ocher, as faces burnished a blood red, colored by the wood fire of W.W.II’s wood remains left since the war, as there are no trees on the island.

Study for Nine Doors

112. Nine Doors

Commands a formal as well as symbolic center and adds a mysterious convergence point that resolves the composition. Punctuated by the eternal flux of the universe and the transience of human life. Shaded rectangles representing windows and doors of the barrack windows.

113.The Fallen Line

40 x 52"

Collection, Barbara Sherman

116. Caught in the Crossfire

The rhythmic syntax of the work could be completely changed by the inversion of the relations between form figure and background at the structure. Wild grass reaches like flame licking the structures, as the perspective is distorted as if the lifted. Hills and water, which are at one moment recognizable, seem to dissolve. A world bereft of the human sound and sight, muffled in damp air. I was drawn by the clouds waiting to disperse, or poised to rise, in the sky. STOLEN

118. AVANT-APRE’S (in their wake)

The background, where overcast skies meet the open sea, anchor the complexly angled lines of sight provided by the architectural forms. The theme of death connected this time to the sea, not to war.

118.1 MIRROR ISLAND

I saw Dutch Harbor as a hidden place where lines represent an exchange with symbolic space in which we store our past.

122. DOWN THE ROAD THROUGH THE FORK

The work starts from a road at the fork near the based on The Garden of Forking Paths written by Borges The main concept is about the inheritors of the prophet function. The scene is divided into plains. The face of nature’s ungovernable contours and vaporous masses became a window of thought. Line less receding telephone poles record small human gestures. Double images rhythmic line patterning echoes the recurrent notion of the labyrinth, which is a universal symbol of struggle.

115. FALL OF DARKNESS, SLEEP OF SIGHT

Greeting cards 5 x 6.5 "

12 cards $25

price includes shipping