The most recent pieces here are from 2019-2021, shortly after 2019 I switched my drawing approach from free-flowing asymmetrical, abstract-surreal type images to flat, symmetrical, abstract images. The symmetrical images just kind of fell into what I was doing and I felt they better communicated what I wanted to say visually. After this I stopped making works on good paper with ink, watercolor, and gouache and just made drawings on copy paper with pens or pencils. I took many of these images and transferred them to canvases and made paintings with them. From 2006 to 2017 making art had become a struggle and the work reflected that. In 2017 I got back to serious painting with a new approach. I was still working with the asymmetrical drawing approach and I made some pretty nice paintings. From a painting perspective I wanted to move away from my previous, loose, gestural, labor intensive, built-up, way of painting to a more point A to point B approach based on the images I transferred to canvas. The approach was still labor intensive but I wanted to make them look cleaner and more focused. I guess they were, but the symmetrical image drawings soon took over and the gestural, fun, painting approach also returned. This changed in 2023 when I started using stencils and spray paint along with enamel and oil. I also started bombing again at this time and it wasn’t long before graffiti lettering and the Joni Head became a central theme in my work, augmented by the asymmetrical drawings, all blended together in a multi-layered approach that I am currently working with. It is interesting to me how my work has changed as my life changed, and despite the clear shifts in focus or attention, the work keeps the same intention or purpose, and that is to point to what is beyond what we consider reality, to the Ultimate Reality that we really are.
I am posting these older images so I can have some works on paper to view here, and also to point out, regardless of the changes, my work has really stayed the same. I have been knee-deep in painting for the past several years and like I said, works on paper have not been as important to me as finished pieces. Now I feel it is time for me to return to working with gouache, watercolor, and ink on paper again and see what I can do there now.