Some Ideas About the Work

On one level, my paintings represent ongoing experiments with composition, the search for fresh new discoveries, while on another level they seek to relate the physical act of exploration to older and more universal questions.  Initially, I spend quite a lot of time aggressively manipulating the composition in order to achieve a satisfying and evocative layout, and the picture slowly evolves to completion from that point.  A visible record of the many layers and changes that take place serves to energize the picture with a living history of activity, and shows the work to be a temporal as well as a spatial phenomenon.

The content of the work explores the interactions of organic and inorganic forms within spatially fragmented environments. To generate these forms, I use a playful language of gestural abstraction and automatic drawing that has developed over many years as a personal vocabulary. Organic, free-form elements interact within constructs of implied architecture and depth of space, without the rigor of precise perspective. This approach draws some inspiration from mythology and primitive art, which tend to address life's fundamental issues in contexts free of physical laws. The painting techniques I use focus on the present moment, and the subjects depicted relate to basic energies and life forms, which seem more eternal. Together, they try to make a connection between our current sense of time, and a more mythological sense of time.

Ehrling White