My work over the many years, setting aside an intense period of minimalist color grids
during the mid 60’s -70’s, has been characterized by whimsical and often humorous
content, featuring appropriated images from popular culture and fine art sources, but
always bolstered by a strong compositional gestalt, grounded in formalist principles. The
nearly obsessive color modulation of that field -oriented work has stayed in the paintings
throughout my career.
My process from the late 1990’s through the present is founded in collage; the joining and
juxtaposing of areas of decorative pattern and architectonic material ln more recent
paintings, or the contrasting of modulated color fields with floating comic book figures in
other decades. The products of this assembling are fanciful montages with unexpected
resolutions. A resulting composite is either a mash up of cultural symbols or may suggest a
stream of consciousness narrative. The concentration of figurative or animal images as
resource has grown or shrunk over the years and lately more geometric or color-based
spaces have come to predominate.
Elements that have recurred in my work over decades are the centered, circular motif or
mandala, the minimalist grid, subtle color modulation, constructivist planar organization
sometimes appropriated from Popova and other Russian Constructivists, and pattern,
whether self-generated or appropriated. Bold contrast of shape, derived from an actual
figure or an abstraction, value based figure/ ground interaction and clear linear structure
hold my complex compositions in balance.
I have taken inspiration from California pop artist Billy Al Bengston, NY School Robert
Motherwell, Picasso, Alan Davie, Fernand Leger, Popova, from Near Eastern drawings and
illuminations, African sculptures,1940’s comic books, wall - paper, iconic stencils and Sol
Lewitt. My process has shifted from the direct gestural paint handling in the early post -
grad school years inspired by NY School expressionism, to a carefully and painstakingly
layered and color - modulated application of acrylic paint using very small brushes.