Color Volumes

Prussian Blue Volume 2012 60x60 a/c

Cerulean Blue Volume 2009 acrylic on canvas 60x60x2”Collection University of California Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive

Blue Volume(October) 2008 60x60" a/c

Blue Volume(Summer Lake)2009 60x60" a/c  Collection Oakland Museum of California

In 1966, I had an experience of light in a place called China Basin, then railroad yards, where some artists had studios.

In 2008 in a north lit studio along the estuary, I began painting 5' square paintings that project 2" from the wall. I am interested in the square's perceived geometric wholeness and in the direct way a 5' square addresses and references the body.

These color volumes are produced with up to 60 layers of successive varying hue. The interaction of these colors produces light, simultaneously opening to reveal depth.

My colors derive from nature. I am concerned with the colors' weight and mass or airy weightiness. They often reference California's tactile, fluctuating coastal light.

These color volumes are concerned with surface and with fusing surface and volume. They are concerned with the implied intimacy of a physically intensive and temporally extended painting practice. They are painted with a devotion to the long history and meaning of brush and paint.

Although the square may be considered an aggressive geometric shape, these paintings skirt invisibility. They aspire to silence. Their presence derives from layered color and uncompromising paint handling to reveal depth through unequivocal surface.