These are my abstract oil paintings. The most recent one was painted in the late 1980s.
As I've said elsewhere on this site I've been a naturalistic artist since 2006. Previous to that
I was disillusioned with the contemporary art world for a number of years and did no work. For a few
years previous to that I did naturalistic drawings of insects and some abstract drawings.
So why show this old work? Well for one thing I'm still very fond of it. That's probably most important.
But I also like the idea of showing my history as an artist, including some phases that might
surprise people who have only seen my recent bird art. All that I learned, and loved, while doing
my abstract art has an effect on what I do now.
'Wissahickon', by the way is actually my first bird art. At that time I did a fair amount of fishing in the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia. Since much fishing occurs early in the morning the creek was often populated by just me, some birds and the fish. Often I'd see these large black birds and my limited birding knowledge at that time labeled them as ravens. Soon however I realized that this was unlikely. Today I can say after an additional 20 years of birding experience there that they were much more likely to be common grackles. But that's really unimportant. What is important is that I had the desire to portray my experience of nature through abstraction. This was another step I'm sure in my move toward naturalism. Along with the grackles the painting portrays the creek, boulders in the creek and one fly fisherman whose arms melt into his flyrod. 'Derby Day, Derby Night' also shows some naturalistic tendencies in that it tries to portray my experience of spring in Kentucky in early May, just at the time of the Kentucky Derby. There are no horses portrayed here. But I did love spring in Kentucky and the light, color and shapes of this painting reminded me of that experience. So it too seems to be part of the naturalistic continuum in my work.
'Ladder', 72x96, oil.
'Derby Day, Derby Night', 72x96, oil.
'RooskieWooskie', 72x96, oil.
'Short Arthur's Oblique and Non-Stop Song', 72x96, oil.
'Wissahickon', 96x72, oil.
'Idyll', 72x48, oil.