The Windows paintings started out as ink tests. I had just bought myself a copy of Jason Logan’s book “Make Ink” and was doing just that with some ground charcoal, gum arabic, and water. I used some old handmade and watercolour paper scraps I had lying around to test the new ink. I tried lots of different things, wet on dry, sumi-e brushes, and finally wet-on wet. I LOVED the way the ink bled into the paper and found that when I drew a frame around a sheet of paper in this rich dark ink, it described the light entering a dark room. I played and played and became completely beguiled by the images I was making of light entering a dark room.
I started to think about Vermeer paintings I had seen in person and in repriuction and how that painter always shown light entering a room perpendicular to the view, creating a raking light that really set of the textures and modelling of the people and objects in the scene. Beyond that I didn’t really think more about WHY I like the motif, and jus continued banging away at these paintings.
In 2023, when I was starting to think about the theme for my first solo show at Gage Gallery, I returned to this motif and gave it some more thought. Sometimes, the motifs I work with activate something in me that’s not entirely conscious and take a while to simmer up to consciousness.
What I realized after some thought, and more Windows paintings, was that they really represented a time some 7 years before when I was coming out of a very dark period in my life. The light entering a dark room was a metaphor for how light gradually (sometimes violently) entered my life after a period of darkness.
I’ve set these pictures aside for the time being, but there are lots of examples of them to look at on the site. Follow this link…
