Abstract

I've always been intrigued by art. My father and uncles are all artists. My uncles are both accomplished painters and musicians. Their art is amazing. For the last decade I've been captivated and devouring all I can of abstract art. My favorite painters are (in no order) Helen Frankenthaler, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, and Franz Klein.
I think similarly of music, literature and film. Something clicked that made me a seeker of expression that was brought about out not by a frankness of image but by emotion, and association. Godard, and Eno are similarly big inspirations for me. To me this is an expression of mental activity that is easier to convey when experienced by either seeing films like those of Stan Brakhage or Jonas Mekas or in hearing music like Debussy or Charles Mingus. I would say also that literature like Emily Dickinson, or John Ashberry have a way of filling your head up with images in a series of words that expand far beyond the chosen few that appear on the page. They command variations of light for me. Rooms I'd forgotten I've walked through. Of memories and feelings long lost. Pynchon and Nabokov bring this out as well.
One of my favorite parts of film are the pick up shots, like the ones in Taxi Driver. The movement of the camera as we see a grimy nineteen seventies New York City from the window of a cab. Moments like this didn't even occur to me before I dove into the realm of the abstract, and now I pay close attention.
I have made art since I was a child. My father taught my siblings and I to draw, passing on techniques he'd learned in school. I took some classes myself but have always opted to discover what I can just by doing. I don't think this method is for everyone. It hasn't brought me any success in the monetary or critical arena, but then I'm not really after success as a painter. I think, to me, a success it achieving something for yourself that hasn't been done before, or expanding a terrain that has only recently been opened. It's about discovery, and I think that is what I'm really after.