| |
| Artist Statement |
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY JOURNEY
The most significant thing about me as a human being is that I am an artist. For me, art is the mode through which I find engagement and meaning in life. A day in which I have had an art encounter, either through making art or viewing it, is a day in which I have been alive.
As a child, I drew and sketched incessantly. It was as if the only way I could learn about the world, to apprehend it as it were, was by drawing it. In college, I majored in literature, minored in art history, and additionally followed a pre-med curriculum. I studied jazz piano with a great teacher and now a great friend, jazz pianist Larry Bluth.
After graduation, I took a 20 year detour as an emergency physician. In 1979, I came down with multiple sclerosis. I continued to practice medicine despite the fact that I had become wheel chair bound. It was in 1993, that I decided it was time to continue to explore the world of my first love...art.
I began painting in 1993. I had lost the use of my dominant right arm, and so I simply began painting with my clumsy left arm. I had no lessons, no teachers, and no knowledge, but I forged ahead through trial and error and eventually my painting began to look like something. I had some early successes with two highly favorable shows at The Bianco gallery in Buckingham, PA and an exhibit at the Newman Gallery in Philadelphia, PA but realized that I had a lot more work to do before I began exhibiting my art.
Up until 2000, I painted en plein air exclusively. That year I became a studio painter. In 2001, I became associated with The Gratz Gallery and Conservation Studio in New Hope, PA as one of two living artists represented by this most prestigious gallery. I was honored indeed by proprietors Paul and Harriet Gratz, and the Gallery has proved to be the most professional, ethical and enjoyable venue that I have ever been associated with. I have had six annual one-man shows at the gallery which have been highly successful.
Additionally, I have been juried into many of the celebrated, annual Philliips Mill art exhibitions, garnering five major awards along the way. I have been featured in four publications, countless magazine and newspaper columns, two documentaries and was awarded a Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Grant for Oil Painting in 2003-04. Two of my paintings are in the permanent collection of The James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA.
In 2002, I began writing a weekly arts column, The Artist's Corner, for the Bucks County Herald, for which the superb newspaper person, Bridget Wingert is editor. Eclectic and wide-ranging in nature, these columns have achieved great popularity. The reason I devote so much energy to this endeavor is because I am on a mission to generate discourse on the arts in my community and because I want everyone, including those who may not visit art galleries or museums often, to love art as passionately as I do. A small selection of these columns may be found in the Articles section of the Artspan website.
The bulk of my work to date has been in the landscape genre. In 2007, I decided to stop having solo shows for two years in order to experiment and try out my wings in the genres of still life and the figure. I completely gutted my studio and set things up so that I could work in these new genres and paint much larger canvasses. I have been encouraged in my new endeavors by having a very large figurative work receive a prestigious award in the 2007 Phillips Mill Art Exhibition.
In my current work, my focus has changed from the external world to the internal. While I consider landscape to be a genre with great potential for personal expression, my switch towards the figurative mode is allowing me to delve into the mysteries of my past and present. In terms of process, the formal elements of painting... composition, color, line and texture... are of supreme importance in my work. I must follow my intuitive impulses in the continued exploration of process and content in every painting I create. |
|
|
