A couple of shots of the current show

Here are a couple of shots of the show installed at the Trianon Gallery in Lethbridge, Alberta. The show's opening was the night after the opening at the newly remodeled Southern Alberta Art Gallery across the street. There were hundreds of people from all walks of the art world out for our show, despite some hangovers after a packed party at the SAAG the night before. More detailed shots to follow. Thanks everyone for showing up, the warm reception and the great conversations.

Show

Nouveau Frankenstein, a show with Michael Campbell (http://www.field-recordings.com/)
and Scot Bullick at the Trianon Gallery in Lethbridge, Alberta. Michael teaches right next door at the University of Lethbridge, and Scot is coming down from Calgary for the opening.

Wunderkammer Bezedrome

A quiet place. Cataloging.
60" x 52" Oil on Canvas.
Carving out a vaguely lifelike place.

Heaven and Earth Bench

Oil on Canvas 28" x 28"

Gridiron

Oil on Canvas 60" x 52"

Study for Double Mound

Oil on canvas diptych 12" x 24"

Deluxe

Wunderkammer Deluxe
Oil on Canvas 48" x 48"

Heaven Stack

Stack - Oil on canvas 60" x 52'

Here is an earlier painting posted, with the more recent work on the painting. I continue to work on a piece until I feel the image is arising from the paint rather than a concept I've drawn out and filled in - more satisfying to draw with paint than do a painted drawing. The challenges usually result in a "truer" image.

Green Heaven

  

Oil on Canvas 60" x 52"

This one is "in progress" and will be updated as it gets closer to painter's heaven.

Wunderkammer pre-study

Here is a drawing for the painting in the previous post. I generally work in this way, an idea becomes several drawings in which I play with various compositions and possibilities. Then I paint with the drawings as a rough guide, and in the painting process the final piece comes out quite differently than the original drawings. I'm just not much good at copying my own work.....

Wunderkammer

Oil on Canvas 48" x 48"

I've been fascinated with Wunderkammer "cabinets of curiosities", the tension between encyclopedic knowledge and the wonderment created from collections of the unnamed or cast-off object.


Placing them in "High Places" is reflecting the odd synthesis of this time and place.... the drive to discover "Heaven" and the endless task of sorting our earthly past.

More floating islands

Oil on Canvas 28" x 28"

Indulging in gesture. Everyone who comes into the studio seems drawn to the minimalism of these canvases - I'd prefer they weren't. These will probably be painted over in the future.

Floating Islands

These are 18" x 18" Oil on canvas. More of the piles from last post soon. The color correction on these is off, I'm on the road and using a different computer that doesn't have photoshop loaded, so can't fine tune the editing to better approximate the colors in the originals.

Mountains, or just hills ?

Oil on Canvas  28" x 28"

These paintings are continuing the Heaven and Earth series. They have evolved from a persistent dream image that has insisted I pay attention to it and paint it to the exclusion of all other possible imagery and subject matter. So I'm obliging and letting the mountains/hills/ziggaurats paint themselves. If only it were that easy.

Most have followed from a pencil sketchbook of these piles. Here is the drawing for this particular painting:

Night Berg

 















Oil on Canvas 12" x 12"

Icebergs at night - power and information frozen in place, resting. I'm drawn to the contrasts contained in the massiveness of the object that floats, fluidity/solidity, whiteness in the dark.

Lounging Back

Another small sketch from figure drawing,
Pencil on paper,  11" x 9"

Figure Drawing

We have a figure drawing group that meets on Sundays - Since I had surgery in January I've been going regularly to help build my stamina back up. This model is so expressive and relaxed that it's easy to forget I'm actually drawing during the 20 minute poses.

Cliff Repair

Oil on Canvas 28" x 28"

The grand landscape has a different beauty in its crumbling state, no less interesting for the tin, nails and duct tape that hold it together. Here is the piece in progress and (perhaps) a finished state.

Piles

Oil on Canvas  62″ x 52″

From a series I’m working on called Heaven and Earth. Concerned with space and solidity recently, the meeting of air and ground. Or more truly spirit and matter.... I will post this painting again as I work on it further.

Sketch for Piles

Here is a small drawing done n the studio as I worked on "Piles". I work on composition and layout through drawing as I paint and reach points where I need to make decisions about what stays and what goes on a canvas.

Heaven and Earth

Oil on Canvas  62" x 52"

Treasures collected in the unattainable place between heaven and earth, spirit and matter. I have been more interested in very concrete space that describes the meeting places between ground and sky, or in a more expanded sense high and low - high culture/low culture, rarified and mundane, etc...

Magic Mountain

48" x 48" Oil on Canvas

"Oh to live on, Sugar Mountain".
Ironically, that line from Neil Young's song ran through my head as I worked feverishly on this painting. From last years show at the ARC Gallery, click link for statement from that show.

Magnet

48" x 48" Oil on Canvas

Two words - More Metal.

A painting from a while back, reposting as I'm doing new version of my blog...

Magnetic Shitstorm

Here is an older painting post I'm migrating off my old website, sorry for the repetition!

We have an institution here on the island called the Depot.  It’s a semi-self sufficient anti-dump where recycling/re-using is the operating philosophy, and the Freestore is the jewel in the Depot’s crown. Islanders and visitors drop off their serviceable clothes, books, funky and sometimes just beater furniture for others to use - a free barter system. Deposit the clothes you’re sick of or have outgrown, and refresh your wardrobe with someone else’s castoffs. Makes for a lot of intimacy between neighbors, when you’re wearing his shoes and he’s sporting your hat.

Then there’s the metal bin… all manner of odd nuts and bolts, tools, flashings, motors,and mysterious objects by the ton. People have built and rebuilt everything from booze stills to automobiles from the metal bits and pieces found at the Freestore. Continuing my magnet series, this 48″ x 48″ oil on canvas is the flying iron cloud I imagine would be created by the push/pull of two large magnets sailing through…..

Eucharist

Oil on Canvas  Diptych  18" x 36"

Bread and transformation. Grind grain to dust and mix with water. Heat, eat, grow. Grind rock to powder and mix with oil. Look, represent, change.