Artist Statement

Similar to the space between the word "blue" and the color we see, there is a sense of something that can't quite be articulated. A peripheral interruption in comprehension, like the flicker of movement seen out of the corner of one's eye. An illusion of an unfinished state, flipping and turning within the space of the color. These images become a reflection of the ulterior ambiguities of the mind.

Color is removed from its perceptual function and displayed as a major component in my paintings. In David Batchelor's Chromophobia, an understanding of the nature of color in painting is conceived through a comparison between two modes of producing color:

The colour-chart colours have contributed to a further change in the use and understanding of colour. This might be called the digitalization of colour, whose opposite is analogical colour. The colour circle is analogical; the colour chart is digital. Analogical colour is a continuum, a seamless spectrum, an undivided whole, a merging of one colour into another.

The use of oil paint is integral to the notion of a color continuum. Mixing paint and using the color circle insists upon a view of color that refers to perception. Through the use of traditional methods, a shift within an existing tradition can create a rift in contemporary painting and bring attention to its somewhat forgotten function.

Painting provides a view of color that is external to everyday perception. When one moves through the surrounding space it is necessary to ignore peripheral elements (like color interactions). As a function of spatial navigation, vision and memory come together to create a generic picture. Painting has no requirement for that kind of denial. It does not exclude these parametric occurrences, especially since it is already so exclusive. Painting can then contain a picture that is somewhat alien and not easily situated within the constructs of everyday visual phenomena.