The charcoal portrait  drawings were drawn at home after sketching each model from life at the Schuler School of Fine Art  to hone my portait drawing skills with a focus on  anatomy, form, light and shade,  likeness, and authenticity. The casts were copies  completed at home to explore the mass of the human head and also how light affects that mass. The pastel life drawings were drawn from  models at the MICA Open Sessions life drawing classes in the evenings. The pastel portraits were drawn from models at the Jewish Community Center.

Abstract Work Overview: Process Evolution and Post Analysis
 
Although the works were not painted in the order presented, for the purposes of this portfolio, I have ordered and categorized the pieces as follows: The work is divided into three primary groups: Vortices (Projects 2 -7), Manuscriptions (Project 3 - 9), and Hybrids (Project 10).
 

• Vortices (Projects 2-7):
  • Vortex works are an exploration of circular forms and movement.
• Manuscriptions (Projects 3-9)
  • Manuscriptions are a study of calligraphic mark making.
• Hybrids: (Project 10)
  • Hybrids combine both Vortex and Manuscription characteristics.

 
The first group of Abstract Paintings: Vortices progress from multi-color, large, loose, random, fluid, circular movements to more monochromatic, concrete, symbolic aggregations with multiplicity as a common motif.  The effects are ornamental but organic. The paint flows and interacts naturally reflecting designs, processes, and patterns in nature both macro and micro:  planets, stars, land masses, oceans, rivers, streams, light rays, subatomic particles, plants, trees, branches, clouds, sky, radiation, etc., with an emphasis on color and surface.

A burst of colorful sections and pieces that roll and ripple across the flat surface, this kaleidoscopic work demands closer inspection. Broken, salmon-colored bits distributed pell mell anchor and unify the flotsam and jetsam that clusters and clamors on top pushing and pulling for space.  
Dense, white, ribboned sections curl and fold creating small sovereign cracked, crusted, and cratered tessellations streaked with bands of color that shelter super abundant colonies of thriving, tiny, fragile organic cell-like forms decorated with cilia, protected with outer walls and full of mysterious, translucent inner bodies.
 
Smears of rainbow colors and ornate mosaic sections evoke organic patterned bird and insect wings, opalescent fish scales, horny turtle shells, and snake and reptile skin. The dark edges nurture and insulate sentient forms: new life clamors to join the active pulsing center, a swirl of chaos rotating windmill-like around and emanating outward from the planar surface in an energetic rush of color and movement, seeking to push past the world’s edge of the painting’s sides.
 
Plain, empty, bright yellow and white forms suspended throughout provide some rest spots for the eyes. Dense, phallic, blood red offshoots spike through the fructuous mix racing rocketlike outward. Minuscule forms with weight, purpose, and direction congregate and spin out in different groups, racing to find their proper place in the turbulent mix.

The works are tactile and demand to be touched, an often overlooked component of traditional painting. The surfaces vary from thick to thin, shiny to dull, cracked to whole,  sheer to opaque, mixed colors to pure colors, bumpy to smooth, frenetic to meditative. 

This large work is a maelstrom of movement with large, crusty pieces that seem to float across the liquid surface, evoking the natural world of Earth and water. The primordial, soupy mix is full of energized peninsulas, which reach out to explore the thick, liquid surface like giant fingers. Hundreds of bubbly, white cell-like clusters tag along for the ride, dispersing themselves within the larger space, often anchoring themselves on edges and currents.

Pink and grey netting forms from the chaotic movement and stretches to encapsulate dense, broken, black rock-like masses that both thrust and climb and settle and drop, suggesting both spewing lava, tempestuous water, and blazing, hot earth. Bright, red liquid color dispersed throughout pulses and splashes amongst the aggregate more solid masses that crack and break as the bloody pigment rushes to fill and follow the chaotic movement.

Large, circular swirls give some structure and direction to the swarming pieces crammed together and ripe with purpose, set upon their course by the energy and direction exerted on them. Craters and streams, cracks and crevices, zig zags and exploding peaks race along with the slippery currents and pounding waves. The matter jostles and propels until an equilibrium has been reached. As the energy comes to rest, the matter dries and settles into a freeze frame, which opens a split-second window into the fantastical world created.

The large works create a field experience where the viewer can be immersed in the color, pattern, texture, movement, and spectacle of paint that hopefully engages, challenges, and visually satisfies. 

A multicolor painting heavily textured with dry areas that split, crumble and break down, the work brims with frenzied movement and frantic forms that crash and push up against its borders in turbulent waves. The manipulated paint swirls, undulates, and pools, forming a curious terrain with discrete sections that struggle to exist in the general whirlpool.

Paint drags and skips along the surface, creating mini-countercurrents and fractured tides that surge and swell recklessly, carving out random gullies. Whips of paint lash out, but are dragged along, buckling and bending with the flow. Some are captured and redirected in mini-vortices.

Glossy, thick, red appendages branch out like missiles, rocketing helter-skelter in the miry mix. Small forms jettison off and become encapsulated, forming curious satellites full of cell-like forms and random debris. Smeared and streaked paint, resembling mini tornadoes, rend and tear through the tumultuous surface.

I started working on small canvases at first, but then moved on to bigger ones. After that I moved on to huge wood panels, which felt surprisingly comfortable.  Playing  with the paint, I looked for visual effects that interested me. It became a sort of treasure hunt. When I found an effect,  process, texture, or color combination I liked, I brought that to the next work.

It felt like directed play of sorts. I ended up with a series of large canvases and 4ft by 4 ft works of primarily latex paint on wood panels that are related in their rhythm of stroke, application of paint: free pouring and then redirecting with various tools , reliance on texture created from underpaintings, layering, sometimes sanding, and accidents galore, which I was mindful enough at times to repeat as needed. 

Reminder from Project Overview: The first group of Abstract Paintings: Vortices progress from multi-color, large, loose, random, fluid, circular movements to more monochromatic, concrete, symbolic aggregations with multiplicity as a common motif.  

I shunned paint brushes and used common kitchen and other home improvement tools: knives, forks, spatulas, chop sticks, putty and joint knives,  windshield scrapers, rakes and other  improvised tools like wooden sticks of different sizes and cuts to manipulate the paint: scratch, scrape, stress, mar and gouge the surfaces, often using both hands in tandem at times to create patterns that were interconnected, tangled, intertwined, interactive.

Manuscriptions: The word manuscriptions breaks down to the prefix manu, which means hand, and the root word script, which means writing. This group of paintings explores graphic mark making: Tight to loose, large to small, one hand vs two, fingers and hands vs various tools, deep vs shallow, etc. This group ends with the marks creating form in" Red Splitting Form".

Most of the works were created with no real end result in mind. The paint was poured, scraped, and manipulated with various unorthodox tools. Some were rotated repeatedly to move the paint around the canvas. Some were old paintings layered over with additional coats of paint and then scraped and/or sanded to reveal the texture and hidden pattern of the colored shapes beneath.

In these projects the manuscriptions evolve to more complex figurative forms: botanical, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic.
 

• "Blue Flower": botanical
• "Forest for the Trees": botanical
• "Uroboros": zoomorphic
• "Burial": zoomorphic and anthropomorphic
• "Dancers": anthropomorphic

In this set the manuscriptions devolve from simple ornamentation in "Southwest" and "Fossilized" to minimalist markings in "Flight" and "Petroglyph" and finally to "Golden Billboard" where the graphic marks disappear altogether.
 

• Southwest
• Fossilized
• Flight
• Petroglyph
• Golden Billboard

Synthesis of both:  Project 10

These Hybrid paintings combine both aspects from the Vortex series as well as characteristics from Manuscriptions.

In "Red and Blue Hands" graphic hand marks are clawed onto the slick surface into deconstructed circles.
 
In "Stellar" marks are more mechanical, linear rather than circular, but lurking behind the dense grid is a halo of concentric, circular rings radiating outward.
 
In "Blue Stars" clusters of star forms float in a lucent space full of snaking, scaled forms.

Conclusion:
My original goal in working abstractly was to just get out of the rut of drawing so tightly and holding on so dearly to old habits. I really enjoyed the freedom of working without being tethered to an object. I didn’t know going in that my mind and the process itself would provide all the reference points I needed. I was amazed how quickly and purposefully I could work just building on each step and trusting my intuition and curiosity to take me to that next step.

My future goal will be to use the process of producing abstract art and apply it to my portrait and figure drawing and painting: to explore the face and body without being so shackled to likeness, proportion, perspective, anatomy, etc. Also, I will use my new abstract skills to create a space for my subjects, which amplifies, respects, and reflects more dimensions of their uniqueness and inner worlds.

Important Closing Note: The narrative presented  was not pre-planned but revealed itself as all the works from the last two years were laid out for inspection, sorting, and analysis, like gigantic thumbnails on an epic storyboard.

Thanks for taking the time to share my journey and my story.