The influence my father had on me as an artist from the very begining


The Green Disciples are a series of paintings about loss. My inspiration came from a journey to Paris 14 years ago at the Pere La Chaise cemetery located in the third arrondissement.
I choose green to emphasise the transient nature of birth and decay and their relationship to classical themes of social processes at work in the fleeting illusion we call - environment.


The Ballet series is a celebration of a personal come back from an injury I received while preparing for a dance recital. The process of dance is one of ethereal beauty and physical pain. Through the hard work comes an almost re-sculpture of your own body to execute the difficult movements, a labor of love.
"Day" is a book of my paintings and my father's poems, a series of poems that were written in 1970.
My father was a published poet of over twenty books. He passed away in 1991 and it has been my wish to publish as much of his remaining work as possible.


My paintings have always been about sadness and its manifestation in the human figure. At times we feel we are in a tight corner, itching to get out, to be free from our bodies, our minds, our environment. I struggle with my work to convey the human figure with both emotion and grace. I have much to do, and many images to go, in order to create the sustained vision of being human in the light of the divine.
My father always said, "be true to yourself, and look within your soul, and you will be on your way to
forming the crystalline".

Comments

  1. From Conrad,
    Wow!
    The fleshy, collapsed (collapsing) forms evoke "loss beautifully. I'm particularly enchanted with the Pere Lachaise image (maybe because of Jim Morrison).

    Please let us know if you have a book of artwork in print.

    Thank you Conrad for the post.

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  2. Loss, indeed—redeemed by form and color. There is something of the weight to be found in Thomas Hart Benton, but abstracted and spectral. Moving stuff....

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  3. Hi Joseph,
    Thank you. I will look up Thomas Hart Benton.
    Claudia

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting person:

    Benton taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1926 to 1935 and at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1935 to 1941. His most famous student, Jackson Pollock, whom he mentored in the Art Students League, would diverge from Benton's style and found the Abstract Expressionist movement. Pollock often said that Benton's traditional teachings gave him something to rebel against.

    Benton's students in New York and Kansas City included many painters who would make significant contributions to American art. They included Pollock’s brother Charles Pollock, Charles Banks Wilson, Frederic James, Lamar Dodd, Reginald Marsh, Charles Green Shaw, Margot Peet, Jackson Lee Nesbitt, Roger Medearis, Glenn Gant, Fuller Potter, and Delmer J. Yoakum.[10] Benton also briefly taught Dennis Hopper at the Kansas City Art Institute; Hopper was later known for being a rebellious actor, filmmaker, and photographer
    I studied at The Arts Students League of NY
    and Cooper Union.

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  5. neat connections
    every DAY

    my original muse (Fay Chin)
    taught sumi-e at Cooper Union

    DAY

    is
    a
    perfect
    'little'
    book


    &
    your
    portrait
    of

    Frank
    on
    cover

    right
    hand
    fingers

    (I just discovered that tape via clicking "Video bar" ...
    & was suddenly struck...

    the children in the background playing...

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  6. Hi Ed,
    Yes, very cool - I am connecting with Charles Berstein and uploading the NY reading and this interview through PennSound.
    Also, sending PDF's of The Prefiguration and Lumen Gloriae for download.
    Yes, "Day" is a nice little book.

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  7. Claudia,

    it's just struck me (as I view the paintings of Francis Bacon) that your figures look like the opposite of his broken & severed bodies. More softly elongated, without the exploding 'energies' and screams, broken people made whole in grief.

    Bacon's subjects try to unnerve, while yours give the quiet comfort that follows sadness.

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  8. Conrad,
    What a beautiful comparison. I am very proud of these paintings.

    Thank you,
    Claudia

    ReplyDelete

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