Artist’s statement

Resilience:

These paintings are in acrylic on canvas and always start in abstraction and color. Even a small initial mark reinvents empty white canvas. As the painting comes to life, sometimes images have emerged from that field of color and space. Mountains, trees, skies, even birds and fish initially hidden may reveal themselves. This process echoes the resilience of nature, which nurtures the slow and erratic process of healing and rejuvenation. Several of these paintings are really “re-paintings,” and have lived previous lives. The residue of those deeper layers shows through and adds richness to the new incarnation. And a few in this show are brand new, just born this fall and winter.

My work is signed with my dharma name, “Koku,” which means “vast, empty sky”…the place where paintings come from.

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEDIA:

These pieces (Transformed Life) are based on 16mm film shot over 45 years ago; some of them on black and white film hand developed and stained. Strips of film are scanned using a high resolution flat bed scanner to rescue individual frames which are then arranged in photoshop before printing. The images are stacked in vertical columns so that each piece can be read through time from upper left to lower right. Each image is a distinct separate photograph and since 16 mm film runs at 24 frames a second, each represents 1/24th second of life preserved and yet transformed. This transformation may also include the color modifications which creates the poignancy and mood of each piece.