ABOUT THESE PAINTINGS

A few years ago I began making some oil paintings that were smaller than my usual sizes. These made me wonder what would happen if my paintings became even smaller. Now I am making only small paintings, usually not exceeding 24 inches, some dimensions in single digits.

The paintings on this website are some of the results of this experiment. They continue my practice of working from photographs that I make in the market in Oaxaca, Mexico. For these small pieces I have often cropped the original image, coming into a closer focus on abstract elements of shape and composition while attending to the specific photographic descriptions and illusions. This balance of contradictions---the puzzle of just what it is that you’re looking at, opposed to realistic rendering---seems to fit my proclivity for seeking out contrasts. Hard/soft, fast/slow, textured/smooth, flat/spatial---these visual opposites are always present in the world around us. So they are rediscovered and emphasized in my little pictures.