Contemporary Classical Antiquity Inspired Musicians and Birds Oil Painting 2014

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This oil painting, Musicians And Birds, is part of a decades-long series I think of as "faux bas-relief". The visuals … Read more This oil painting, Musicians And Birds, is part of a decades-long series I think of as "faux bas-relief". The visuals are ancient Mediterranean-esque, but the observations are au courant. This will be apparent if you take some time to "read" the imagery.

The motives underlying all my paintings are both current and timeless: our common need for sustenance, beauty, and grace. Humans have not changed dramatically since we first appeared and I look for threads of continuity, aiming to make imagery that’s rooted in the mythic, the mystic, and the cycles of Nature.

Paintings of vessels, birds, plant life, and human figures are cast as aspects of an elusive yet inviting sanctuary. Frequently the images are rooted in the remnants of ancient cultures, both tangible and oral, but they are always responding to our current world as well.

Concurrent with my professional art practice, soon after completing a dual major in fine art and philosophy, I was also an organic farmer from 1988-2017 largely occupied with goats and with effecting alchemical transformations of milk and plants. Those decades of raw, ever-precarious, thoughtful farm experience resonate throughout the artwork, testifying to the cycles & perils of life for all sentient beings, humans included. See less