The Memory of Atmosphere

Artist Statement

I went back to Tres Piedras, New Mexico in June to re-negotiate my understanding of the sky. The lightning strike last September has left me leary of that blue ceiling: convinced an electrical confrontation is imminent with every pregnant looking cloud. I thought I’d paint the clouds and sit with the atmosphere. And I did. And I painted in June and July this collection of memories. I sat out under that big northern New Mexico sky and painted from memory the impression of the moment I was experiencing.

I contemplated time and geology, the cycles of rain which shape the rocks and earth into these fantastic forms. Ancient sea creatures died to form sedimentary rock then millennia later are again eroded back into particles floating in the sea - that Rio Grande will eventually make it to the gulf again. Time scales, memories evolve. The memory of the earth is entrusted to the basic shapes: outlines of catastrophe and gardens of rebirth. All is.

Memory refines forms to their basic emotions and conveys poetically the impression of an event. This collection of memories which is my life never ceases to amaze me.

Forms simplify and the triangles, squares, and circles begin to make an appearance. Those simplest forms stacked upon each other rebuilding empires through the dissolution of the unnecessary. Abstractions interacting with clarity, the mind is allowed to explore beyond the edges of the composition and insert it’s own self into the story. We are creatures existing together in this time and our symbologies intertwine electronically now.

I painted and listened and experienced the wind and the sun and the bugs and the ground. Within the chaos I found patterns, I erased details, I turned form into emotion. I painted the place not by representing it exactly, rather by capturing an experience of working in a place during a time.

The paintings appeared often by themselves through me just working and allowing intuition to guide the brush. The act of painting is transcendental to me, I do not start out with ideas but rather allow the painting to alchemically appear through the application of time spent brushing away at it.

I looked up recently and decided the sky now is ok to me. I’ve realized I may, or may not, be struck by lightning again but I have to keep living out under this big sky. I explored myself while imbuing each work with the essence of this slope of the mountains, the ponderosa, the mariposa lily’s, the ToeHee, and the crow. My memories of that touch from the electric finger from the heavens have now too become fond of that moment, like, maybe it shouldn’t be so bad to be struck again, I’ve got this great story.

The past always is precious, because it was perfect, just as this moment is, just as the future will be. Hypnotic balance and tricks of the eye, you have to look to see. These paintings are a celebration of the simple reality that life must be lived, fully, from all angles in order that we might have many, many outstanding memories of the atmosphere.

Exhibition

August 2nd - 31st, 2024
Sun and Dust Gallery
Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM