Floral Impressions

This was done some time ago, after I had moved out of the student residence and into a shared house where I had the chance to set up a studio in a spare room, and then later in the basement. The 13 impression are the 12 small paintings-within-the-painting, and then the one in the background which makes a bakers dozen of images. It was a transition time when I was moving away from painting florals which had been the mainstay in my early career, and then moving towards the abstract style. Around this time I also painted 'Art vs. Science' which was perhaps the first real abstract-surrealist painting I did, at least that was the one that got it going. There is a similar painting I did more in green hues, and one in red hues, both with 11 impressions and a clean design:

Together, the paintings completed the impressions series. Looking at them now maybe it would be cool to do some new ones.

22x30" watercolour, 300lbs cold pressed, 1996 (?)

The Joker

A few times music has entered my artwork, usually in the form of lyrics of songs that I was listening to at the time. In this painting I was listening to Nirvana and some Beatles... these bands seems miles apart at least in terms of generation, but both bands sung about similar kinds of angst, and of course, love. The drawing was based on doodles from the little notebooks I bring to meetings, probably from 2014 or so. I have started putting the year on the paintings, the number 2015 shows up near the three legged character at the bottom. The meaning of the painting has something to do with that time in my life when I was painting a lot and doing the graduate degree at Western, or maybe high school, I kind of view myself as the joker because I joked a lot and painted all the time, and played lots of Ultimate frisbee.

22x15" watercolour, cold press, 2015