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.