When Instarted painting in 2012 I thought I was painting because it was fun. Over time, however, my paintings started talking to me, so to speak, which changed everything!
What I eventually realized is that as chaotic and abstract as my painting are, the composition is intentional! All those bold unmixed colors and forms, the hard lines, even the big size of my canvases, these aren't random and spontaneous at all! They are virtually dictated by my soul, my heart, my past, my present, speaking to parts of my life I didn't even know were in me! Bottom line, being an abstract artist is revealing me - to me!
Through "listening" to my paintings, questions and issues I've mulled over for decades, along with a boatload of stuff I didnt even know existed, are all coming to light and helping me immensely.
The painting shown here is a perfect example of what I mean: Painted in 2018, all I saw at the time in this 4'x5' canvas was a big, bold, high impact painting - which I totally loved. Later when I applied my "listening skills," however, I began to see a whole new world, deriving meaning and context from an "exploded" cross image, which opens up and provides a pathway (red and white rectangles) out of the darkness into the unknown. Note, this is not me giving the definitive meaning of this painting! This is just me doing what every viewer of abstract art does, which is giving my very personal response to this particular painting.
The more I listen to my work the more personal, even prophetic, my work becomes for me, revealing insights and wondrous reflections which continue to astound me.
All these years I thought I was painting because I had something to say. Turns out I am painting because I have something to learn! I'm not the master, I'm the student!
