22"x22"
gouache on w/c paper
STILL LIFE
(Deconstruction/Reconstruction)
To enter into a still life, is to enter that place of stillness, absent of sound or noise. For the artist, it is to become calm and focused. The still life is about the act of seeing, and in all realism there is abstraction—in abstraction is realism. Though the artist begins with symbols that refer to the material world, what is seen in the final work are shapes rearranged, created with hard edges, and flat color, and careful gradations.
I watch the morning light flow silently into the studio. It climbs up onto my drawing table, I pull an easel to block its intinsity. Again in the afternoon, approaching from behind, over my shoulder, it jumps onto my work table and again I must shade my work surface from it's blinding brilliance.