New Works
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New paintings are on display and available for purchase at Madrona Wine Merchants
during September and October 2017. 1127 34th Avenue, Seattle, Washington Opening reception: Sunday, September 3, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Details and prices are in the captions below. Prices include frames and domestic shipping. |
This 2 1/2-minute video shows the paintings in the exhibition space, both up close and from a distance.
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Gallery
The Slow Pace of Decay
in this painting, the drapery represents inner activity, and the objects represent outward reality.
First the statue and the feathers: Progress often involves a shedding process, which explains why a crow (which symbolizes death) would have a place in this composition. Certain paths are no longer desirable. The statue and the feathers have a shape and function. If you picked them up, they would keep their shape.
Now the drapery: If you move it, it won't keep its shape. It’s also larger and more colorful than the objects. The warm shadow areas on the sides represent the unconscious churning that isn't visible. Visible reality is driven by the conscious mind; a linear, methodical thought process—reason and control. Reason is represented by the areas of the drapery that are lit with cool light. The intersection of that area of brightest, coolest light and the crow's beak represents the intersection between inner development and outward results.
First the statue and the feathers: Progress often involves a shedding process, which explains why a crow (which symbolizes death) would have a place in this composition. Certain paths are no longer desirable. The statue and the feathers have a shape and function. If you picked them up, they would keep their shape.
Now the drapery: If you move it, it won't keep its shape. It’s also larger and more colorful than the objects. The warm shadow areas on the sides represent the unconscious churning that isn't visible. Visible reality is driven by the conscious mind; a linear, methodical thought process—reason and control. Reason is represented by the areas of the drapery that are lit with cool light. The intersection of that area of brightest, coolest light and the crow's beak represents the intersection between inner development and outward results.
Bertha Mason’s Song
This painting is a commentary on the nearly invisible, uncontrollable forces at work in a creative life. The blood-red corners are the unconscious depths showing from under a cool exterior. The objects in the painting, seagull feathers and fishing floats, are associated with buoyancy. Feathers keep a gull aloft, and fishing floats keep a fishing net afloat. The painting appears to be about buoyancy, but notice the reflections in the fishing floats. In literature, reflections in glass often reveal what’s happening under the surface. It’s pretty easy to see that there are trees outside the windows. But what else—or who else—is out there?
In Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel “Jane Eyre,” one of the main characters has an insane wife he keeps locked in the attic. The madwoman, Bertha Mason, represents the dark, destructive side of creative energy. She does what a proper Victorian governess would never do: she attempts murder and later commits arson. These violent acts are vital to the plot’s development, which involves rearranging the social order. Bertha is associated with blood and fire.
In the painting, Bertha isn’t part of the real or buoyant world. She belongs only to the world of reflections.
In Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel “Jane Eyre,” one of the main characters has an insane wife he keeps locked in the attic. The madwoman, Bertha Mason, represents the dark, destructive side of creative energy. She does what a proper Victorian governess would never do: she attempts murder and later commits arson. These violent acts are vital to the plot’s development, which involves rearranging the social order. Bertha is associated with blood and fire.
In the painting, Bertha isn’t part of the real or buoyant world. She belongs only to the world of reflections.
The painting features four reflections of the same row of windows at the same moment, but Bertha appears in only one of those reflections. Even though she is locked in the attic in the novel, metaphorically, she's outside looking in. Insanity and violence must be contained, even though those containment efforts don't always work. Perhaps those efforts shouldn't always work.
