A place over time...

I’ve started and left unfinished a handful of posts, over the past few days. Rather than taking the time to publish new posts, I’ve spent more effort on the newer individual paintings I mentioned a week or so ago. This new direction is just another perspective in the ever-evolving process of my life’s work as a socialist painter.

From a technical standpoint, is it possible in painting to skip from two-dimensional work directly to a seemingly fourth-dimensional projection, all the while maintaining a physical flatness of spatiality to the actual art work? Lately, I’ve been building aerial perspectives within my work; an omniscient viewpoint of the land not unlike a topographic map. Although the new paintings will definitely draw comparisons to Google satellite maps, the most obvious differences include the color-shading-induced depth of field given to the space and the satellite-perspective of my unique sumi-e marks of trails and pathways. Not to mention, my skewed landscapes that are part reality bundled with dreamy imagination.

The new pieces are a narrative representation of what happens to a place over time, as told from the perspective of space. I have created a faux-three-dimensionality via very slight layers of rice and other handmade papers built upon the surface of the works, buried under layers of paint and ink. Caught in the perfect moment of light, the viewer can capture an impression of previous societies that may have once inhabited these landscapes of my mind. Does this new aspect of painting "a place over time" lend itsef to the fourth-dimension? I’ll post the first couple examples of this new work before the weekend. – DN