These paintings evolved from three sources: direct observation of the external world, the mind's eye, and the id/subconscious.  Direct observation is the basis for most representational art.  It is also the most easily understood, as it closely mirrors human visual experience.  Art of the “mind’s eye”, on the other hand, distorts familiar visual images and reconstructs them in new ways, thereby requiring more intellectual involvement of the viewer.  The most challenging for the viewer is the art of the “id/subconscious.”  Unlike the first two art forms, it presents an unfamiliar visual experience using subconscious stimuli to produce aesthetic and emotional reactions to marks and forms on canvas. Whereas such renderings often have their genesis in real-world observations, they often evolve organically in the creative process and in their completion have little apparent similarity to the motivating observation.

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In 2005 I completed a series of paintings, called "Early Spring, which was motivated by a tradition in our home.  Each year, in late winter, my wife creates an arrangement of yellow tulips and places it in front of our living room window, thereby framing the outside winter gray with our interior “Early Spring.”  The five paintings in this exposition interpret that scene utilizing the three levels of representation discussed earlier.  Although I did not originally intend to paint a series, I began to see that the pieces formed a narrative of how I think and create, from the representational to the abstract.

Whereas many artists find their voice by first working across a creative range and then settling on a narrow segment to produce their primary work, my work will probably always span the range of figurative to abstract, as in this exhibition.  The paintings in this folio are listed in order of creation

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"Early Spring" was painted from direct observation as a symbolic interpretation of a vase of yellow tulips in front of a window framing winter outside.