PROCESS
Since 1988, I have worked with the same fundamental process. I create figures partly through chance, then place them into completely different environments to see what they can become. The works shown here trace that process across different periods of the practice.
COLOR WANDS
I build the instruments I call Color Wands.
Over the years, I’ve made more than three dozen versions, changing their forms as the work itself has evolved. They establish the possibilities for the paint without determining exactly what will happen.
The resulting figure is what I call a FOLP—a Figure of Limited Predictability. I then place that figure into a completely different environment to see what it can become.
A Color Wand releases the paint in a single action. From that moment, flow, momentum, viscosity, and chance determine the figure.
Making A Beautiful Sunrise, 2010 — archival studio footage
ENVIRONMENTS
The figure is created through the same fundamental process. What changes is the environment in which I place it.
Language, color, structure and context alter how the FOLP is read—and what it can become.
CONSTRUCTION
Before chance enters the painting, the environment has already been constructed.
High-Priced Paintings, 2017
Art History Paintings series
IDENTITY
A FOLP begins without a predetermined identity. Its environment determines what it can become.
Crying Being — Hermosa
1991