My work as an artist encompasses several mediums. However, over the past
few years, I have concentrated in the fields of oil painting and graphic design.
Periodically I combine elements and ideas from one medium and incorporate them
into another medium.
In oil painting, I am free to express my thoughts and feelings on a personal
level. In contrast, graphic design is more limiting, more contained for there
is a client to please. However, I firmly believe that fine art has a place
in, and enhances designs ultimately produced electronically by computer.
Presently, my oil paintings represent a subtle, personal expression about the
manner in which people interact with nature. Within the large canvasses, I
incorporate various shapes, textures, colors and text which not only render
pleasing compositions, but also provide underlying conceptual meaning. Each
element is chose carefully. Georgia O’Keefe influences my work in her
subject matter, the scale of her canvasses and her beautiful choice of color.
The large shapes and toned-down natural forms are inspired from nature. The
color of these shapes is vibrant, and represents life, growth and survival.
The texture usually is rendered thickly, dramatically, the implication being
an oppressive, suffocating force. The anti-life or more commonly known as “ego.” By
incorporating typography, I draw in an element of graphic design, and provide
further clues into the concept within the paint. Man has a need to control
his world, which includes his natural environment. Regardless of the consequences,
man’s ego, represented visually by the heavily textured, rectangular
dark borders, is domineering, suffocating thus destructive. Nature, on the
other hand, is a positive, life promoting force, more powerful than the human
ego, and breaks away from the suppression and ultimately succeeds.
My graphic design work also relies heavily on not only the elements of design
within a computerized plane, but also by incorporating fine art into the work.
I accomplish this by using different methods. For example, by scanning texture,
which was previously hand made, by using drawings, prints, photographs, manipulating
their appearance and placing them into a piece, I combine these with the computers
tools to make a pleasing composition. Because this type of work is directly
related to a client, thus making it somewhat less personal, I believe fine
art and digital design can successfully work together.