Sunday

Stenciled objects in yellow, 16 x 16 inches, acrylic on canvas.

I want to share my thoughts about this painting. For me it captures the feeling of life's dualities - energies that can be at odds but that are also interwoven with each other. Jennifer McNally, the arts writer at the Laurel of Asheville magazine likened it to bubblegum punk music, saying that there's confidence, brightness and surface, attitude and edge, but also darkness and chaos, a gritty underlayer.

As the painter, what do I see in it? There are smooth, organized shapes, crisp curves and bright colors in front, but the shapes cut out of this sunny yellow suggest bites, as if insect jaws have been at work. The view it reveals is troubling... black, rough bars, or trees, with bloody spatters and the murky gloom of twilight. But it is pretty - I love the contrast between the flatness and the grain of the brush strokes, the brightness of the yellow with the minor key of the blues behind. I love the smooth edges of the yellow shapes, and the flaws that show up as blips or hazy sections - the edges are as interesting as a pencil line. And I love the sense that there is another world presented beyond a barrier that separates us from it, like a garden fence. The barrier is clear, it connects to our space and has no hidden depths, but it is the boundary of another world beyond, a world that looks beautiful and whose rules are uncertain. It is visceral and slightly exciting. Dangerous perhaps.