figurative work
and portraits
Although it is hard to tell from a web site, all of my figurative work begins with a canvas carefully prepared with layers of satin applied and covered with acrylic gel medium. The satin material adds lines and spots and wrinkles that one has to work with and through in building a figure. In the end these lines are visible at first but quickly become invisible, just as imperfections in people are often apparent at first, but then recede or vanish as one gets to know that individual. The use of fabric in this figurative work also relates to my interest in texture and links these pieces to my abstract paintings.
Here are a few selections...
To see a larger version of the images below, click on them.
oil and mixed media
on canvas
44 x 50"
February 2006
oil on satin on canvas
42 X 48"
June 2005
42 X 48"
June 2005
Hung Out to Dry
A mixed media grouping, whose materials include: fiberglass, burlap, satin, leather, acrylic paint, wax, and leather.
This installation grew out of a scene in a novel by Michael Ondatje called "In the Skin of a Lion". The scene dealt with immigrants who worked in a tannery dying leather in the early 1900’s in Ontario, Canada. The skin dyers would take hides fresh from the slaughterhouse and bring them to cisterns in the ground filled with dyes. They then beat the dye into the skins. When they finished, the skin dyers emerged from the vats covered in dye up to their necks. While the dye could be washed away, the smell never left them, and the chemicals they were exposed to lead to illness and early death.
This installation grew out of a scene in a novel by Michael Ondatje called "In the Skin of a Lion". The scene dealt with immigrants who worked in a tannery dying leather in the early 1900’s in Ontario, Canada. The skin dyers would take hides fresh from the slaughterhouse and bring them to cisterns in the ground filled with dyes. They then beat the dye into the skins. When they finished, the skin dyers emerged from the vats covered in dye up to their necks. While the dye could be washed away, the smell never left them, and the chemicals they were exposed to lead to illness and early death.
mixed media on board,
48 x 46"
48 x 46"
mixed media on canvas,
44 x 54"
44 x 54"
mixed media on canvas,
44 x 54"
44 x 54"
