My conundrum has always been how to make a beautiful abstract painting and then marry it with an image that will borth support the painting and at the same time say something. Lately, over the past few years, many of my images have been of animals, and the conundrum there is how to keep the images from being trite or sweet or both. I found these two wooden swans at one of those places that is an "indoor flea market" in Asheville, North Carolina. I real life I don't have much personal interaction with swans(living in the desert and what not)but I found these two to be quite compelling. They were large, life sized, and altough realistic, you could still see signs of their wooden origins in the sometimes rough handling of the wood, or perhaps that was just life's wear and tear. The Swans will be exhibited in a large show of mine at Craig Krull Gallery, Witness from July 11-Aug. 29.
