TRANSCRIPT:
This is Michael Kessler of Santa Fe, New Mexico visiting Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, Colorado.
I’ve been a painter of the forest all of my life. As a young teen I walked the woods with sketchbook in hand, drawing trees and branches in the sunlight. During the 45 years that I have been painting since then, I have developed a complex painting process that involves layering transparent and translucent veils of color over carefully textured surfaces. The structure of the forest continues to provide me with interesting compositions in which to employ my layering process.
Tree trunks and branches lend themselves to rich pattens of overlaps and eclipses. The negative-positive shapes that present themselves within the matrix of branches creates a rhythmic orchestra of movement and vibration. I continually discover new combinations of possibilities within these parameters, and I’m sure I won’t exhaust the infinite potential of the forest paintings any time soon.