2017

Some thoughts about my paintings: They consider: performative actions, cognitive strategies and decision making processes, political intent, momento mori, collapsing and expanding space, constructed curatorial relationships, transitory moments, suppression and oppression, archeological layering, urban inner city evidence, memory and histories, figure/ground uncertainty, an implied extension beyond edges, taxonomies, archiving, secret narratives......they are collage-like, romantic but not naive, joyous but melancholic, too much, everything!

RD189. 2017. oil on canvas. 84 x 96 inches.

RD193. 2017. oil on canvas. 96 x 94 inches.

RD192. 2017. oil on canvas. 96 x 94 inches.

RD191. 2017. oil on canvas. 96 x 84 inches.

RD194. 2017. oil on canvas. 96 x 94 inches.

RD183. 2017. oil on canvas. 60 x 48 inches

RDtondo1. 2017. oil on plexiglass. 18 inches.

RDtondo3. 2017. oil on plexiglass. 18 inches.

RDtondo2. 2017. oil on plexiglass. 18 inches.

RDtondo4. 2017. oil on plexiglass. 18 inches.

RD177. 2017. oil on canvas. 72 x 60 inches

RD171. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas. 67 x 56 inches

I have recently begun thinking of these paintings in relation to "fake news" and how abstract painting might counter this. This leads me to position the materialism of the painting as literal and factual. Their facticity can be seen via the application and the materiality. Both enhance the reality of them as paintings, as metaphors, as political commentary, as philosophic position - and fight back against notions that facts are not exactly that.

As with any metafiction, these paintings self-consciously draw attention to their own constructed nature as fictions, albeit as factual ones. A dichotomy for any abstract painter...By questioning their own status we can see the analogies that exist for own lives as 'free' 'individuals' within a societal framework that is at constant war with itself.

RD178. 2017. oil on canvas. 72 x 72 inches

RD190. 2017. oil on canvas. 60 x 48 inches

RD186. 2017. oil on canvas over panel. 36 x 24 inches.

RD188. 2017. oil on canvas. 36 x 36 inches.

RD176. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas over panel. 53 x 48 inches

RD184. 2017. oil on canvas. 36 x 30 inches.

RD185. 2017. oil on canvas. 42 x 36 inches.

RD175. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas over panel. 53 x 48 inches

RD174. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas over panel. 53 x 48 inches

RD187. 2017. oil on canvas. 48 x 36 inches

RD173. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas. 14 x 11 inches

RD172. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas. 14 x 11 inches

RD179. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas over panel. 53 x 48 inches

RDminiA. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiC. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiB. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiD. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiE. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiF. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiG. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RDminiH. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RD108.2. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas over panel. 53 x 48 inches

Archeodig. 2017. oil on canvas. 8 x 8 inches

RD170. 2017. oil and enamel on canvas. 60 x 50 inches

The titles for the paintings are in series to illustrate their ongoing and developing nature as well as a
direct address to the viewer as a paratext that
controls the read of the painting. Power is contained in the ability to direct meaning and the discourse
inherent in these paintings is one of interrogation of the means and ways of the excise of Power. The
'expressions' of individual autonomy are imprisoned and directed by outside forces, even by myself, in
these cases. Where does freedom lie then?

The reoccurring motifs are means by which to utilize quotation marks to set the individuated marks (or 'moments') within controlling devices which question their own ability to be free. Using speech bubbles from comix and graffiti outlines the relationship to urban and vernacular means to display ones stance without power is acknowledged. This is done alongside methods of technique that allow for the same to be done via the history of painting. Both are celebrated as authentic and condemned as inadequate at the same time. The question remains then - does one invest enough into this to create a worthwhile life, an existential authenticity? I think so.

RD043.4(167). 2017. oil and enamel on canvas. 66 x 62 inches

The motifs originated as non-particular 'autographs'. They became political through the move and counter-move of display and erasure, of commitment and censure, by intuitive response and imprisonment by surrounding barriers. Loud, colorful shouts of resistance constrained by boundaries, penned in to acceptable positions, governed, redacted.

RD 181. 2017. oil and enamel on panel. 40 x 96 inches.

RD032.2(166). 2017. oil and enamel on canvas. 72 x 60 inches

A question for you to ask is this: what is the relationship between the various elements? How much are we isolated ourselves? What are the political ramifications in our current state when groups seem to be increasingly segregating themselves even when they share a similar general outlook? Who wins when this happens?