Whether or not we are conscious of activity with intent, the human body reveals us. The gestural, active figure mirrors the passions, successes, and failures of our experiences. My painting approach to bodily movement is with responsive contour and gesture brush strokes.
      Contemplating the resulting paintings often leads me to develop points of interest with heavier contour, more value range, color, and pattern. Diaphanous figures washed in color appear and disappear.  Wet shafts of color stream across bodies while form dissolves into the grids, numbers, and patterns that give visibility to surrounding spaces. 
       On the other hand, I may choose to retain the simplicity of the short study as a statement in itself.  Sensitive trails of brushwork may carry a message, the story of a person, the needs of daily existence, or any moment of life transition without elaboration.
 

Recently I had been working from the gesture life model with short, active poses as the basis of figuration.  But isolation during Covid months has changed the availability of everything.  Having no models and being "safe" in work space corners at home, I focused  on smaller scale paintings of faces. The watercolor "2020" captured the uncertainty of a life model's expression in a short pose. I am interested in the faces of people who are finally speaking out, thinking, sleeping, laughing, the expressions that may connect to our own feelings. Quarantine has made a lot of faces available on television.  And text has become a frequent inclusion in these paintings.

Missing being with other people, I unwittingly surrounded myself with face works in progress.  Cutting stencils from value shapes and contours of my own paintings, I could make multiples quickly.  Resolving them as variations takes more time. But during the intense time of developing each painting, it becomes a personal companion for the duration of its resolution and possibly beyond.