RECLAMATION

or Attempt to describe the complex behaviours of systems and systems-of-systems.

Dirt, gravel, forest debris, gel markers, finger paints, children’s paints, utility paint, pigment, acrylic paint skins, concrete, drywall compound, acrylic, oil, damar, uv archival spray on stretched canvas.

I wanted to find a way to paint the forest--but not just the way the trees look, but the way the whole system behaves. I spent weeks listening to the seeping rain and weeping rocks, watching the fungi and tracing how nutrients are routinely broken-down and redeployed in the service of new life. So using dirt from the studio floor, forest detritus and all manner of paints I began to paint a forest in its most abstract terms: explosions of fern and light-dappled leaves, wily vines and overwhelming greens punctuated by burts of flower, armored bark and the heavy milk of sky. Then I would dissolve the image with acetone and paint thinners, creating a peeling, promordial goo of paint decay--which I would use to start the beginning of a painting of a forest. Over and over I did this, until it began to seethe and creep with the soul of the woods. A recombinant, overgrown beauty. The nature of the forest, built from the breakdown of its ancestors.

48" x 48"
Available - $7000