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For our first Q&A: In what way are these works fresh (you can talk about your inspiration here)? How have you expanded existing themes/ideas for which you’re best known?
After taking some time away from painting western scenes, I have returned to the genre with the intention to paint larger and to capture the essence of each scene while adding to the reference sources through memory and imagination. I’m trying to create paintings that can serve as visual icons for aspects of life out west, the landscape is so grand and complicated with detail — that artists must make visual simplifications that feel like the whole story.
I am always attracted to weeds along the roadside so some of the paintings are not very different from those I have done in the past except that weeds suffer or thrive depending on the weather or animals or people and change every year. Some of the other paintings are of scenes I found interesting in places I just happened to be. A few of the paintings (Oak, Step, Step, Sleep Drifts, Slopes) are inspired by 50 years of seeing and wanting to reduce what I see to shapes and colors — and still have a sense of landscape. Those paintings are a stylistic leap backwards to some of the first landscapes I did 50 years ago, but hopefully executed with 50 years of experience.
For years, I have been concerned with the dual issues of beauty and loss. Then last year, the world was altered by the magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic. During lockdown, I could not go to my studio, so I made several dozen studies of my feelings about the situation and its consequences on our lives. I called them my Corona Diaries. They become landscapes of emotions. When the world opened up again, I found myself taking a deep breath and hoping for a less stressful life. Thus began my “Deep Breath” series of paintings that address the many facets of living in a changed world, with a new appreciation for harmony and beauty.