inspiration ~  de Kooning, Gauguin, Cezanne, Francis, Bonnard, Picasso, Soutine, Terlikowsky, Bacon, Klimt, Matisse, Pollock, Nozkowski, Olitski, Doig, Neel, Wray, Monet, O'Keefe, Rothko, Frankenthaler, Jawlensky, Maillol, Gorky, Kandansky, Fischel, Dumas

"At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.” — Harold Rosenberg

The finished painting being only the physical manifestation, a kind of residue, of the actual work of art, which was in the act or process of the painting's creation. This spontaneous activity was the "action" of the painter.



series: raw piece ~ unknown soldier

modern fauvist

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice.  Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism.

series: geome ~ budding

abstract expressionist

Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris. 

The two main styles of abstract expressionism (ABEX) were action painting and color field.

Action painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied.  The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist.

Color field is characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action in favor of an overall consistency of form and process; "color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject in itself."  Creating greatly reduced references to nature, painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color eliminating recognizable imagery.

The painter can let the art work occur from the subconscious mind, thus letting the unconscious part of the psyche assert and express itself.  A seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas; using gesture, surface, line and color to create images near that evoke powerful emotional charges that resonate from the collective unconscious.