Column at Dusk (Oil on canvas, 2005)

In 2005, I started playing heavily with monochromatic and grayscale techniques. This is a piece where I mixed together a fleshy salmon-like tone and then worked through shades and tints of that color until I found what I considered to be interesting combinations.

Around this time, I found a textural appreciation for the bristles of the paintbrush.  I began to emphasize the linear patterns of the brush by focusing largely on geometric compositions. The canvas itself is a rectangle.  The strokes of paint create clusters of thin line. A single color moving in multiple directions reacts to the light differently. Vertical and horizontal elements are distinguished.

The composition is dealt with a 2/3 horizon – the shade variation illuding to a landscape.  The darker register at the bottom is heavy like earth, while the lighter tint forms an illusion of  ”sky.”  The subtle emergence of shape in the upper register are to create a balance of  movement with the darker tones.  The piece is also split into three distinctive parts from left to right – the dominant centerpiece a sort of column.