Dogoids and Other Creatures
This body of work was inspired by my Sketchbook Journals and the desire to use the same technique but on a larger scale on masonite panels, paper and canvas.
I think these creatures dwell in the collective unconscious.
By tapping into this subliminal current of images, I wonder if it’s connecting to a past primordial energy or a present or future timeline?
I find that these images are lurking in the paint and I just help them to emerge.
After making an under-painting of random marks and swipes of paint I put the panel away for a while, giving myself time to ‘not know’. Later I come back and turning the panel in every direction, I look, until, eventually, images start to take shape.
In this way I let the painting tell me what it is about, instead of completely controlling and dictating to it.
Intuitively, choosing some forms and painting over the extraneous marks, I build a composition that integrates the elements into a whole.
Not wanting to nail down an absolute narrative, I am averse to giving explanations or meanings. There are always multiple meanings, so any particular one might dissuade the viewer from discovering their own.
Sometimes the insights of those who see my paintings are profound and give me other levels of nuance that I hadn’t even considered. So I love to hear the stories the creatures whisper to other viewers.
I had a one-person show of this work in 2002, at the Perrin Gallery in Brookline, Massachusetts.
