Finding my "ancestors"
So I find myself squarely in the line of succession of the Color Field, Post Painterly Abstraction painters of the 1950s and 60s. For the past year I've been painting with acrylics on unstained canvas and linen. Using these raw supports give the pieces a soft, organic feel; the acrylic and water-based inks that I use sink into the canvas and become part of the whole. It's a technique that was used by Color Field artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Francis in the 1950s and 60s, which I find myself updating and making my own with a combination of staining, pouring, blotting, line, and use of negative space. Many of the Color Field artists cite their main influences as Matisse, Miro, Klee and Kandinsky; and while Frankenthaler, Francis, Olitsky and Louis share many of the same characteristics, they don’t really resemble each other. I like to think of my work as falling in this line of influence and inspiration. To go into a little more detail, Color Field Painting is a...