Some recent paintings from Fall 2005...

So far, since moving to Astoria, I have managed to finish almost 30 paintings since September; mostly black and white, but I also have some smaller color ones I'm working on. I am generally really happy with the work. Although, some pieces occasionally get reworked if they don't "age" well.

Photo Note: Unfortunately, the photographic quality of the below images is really poor. Much of the subtlety and nuance of the paintings is lost, and the lighting is atrocious (either too dark or too washed out). I will try and post better pictures at some point in the future, when I get a decent camera and lighting setup.

30"x40" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Allograft series)

Two smaller canvases (Possibly 28"x22" and 28"x20") (from the Don Quixote series)

30"x40" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Allograft series)

36"x48" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Allograft series)

24"x18" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Xenograft series)

40"x30" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Allograft series)
[Photo Notes: a little dark; too much flash glare; and out of focus as usual]

30"x40" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Allograft series)

36"x48" Acrylic on Canvas (from the Allograft series)
[Photo Notes: way too washed out; lost subtlety and detail]

Addendum: Sadly, even at its best, photography and digital presentation suck the very life and soul out of a painting. I can remember, back when I had a very nice setup for shooting slides of work, never being ultimately happy with the result. Scale, surface, subtlety, chromatic verity, and even a sense of speed is lost, when a physical object like a painting is reduced to a weightless, thin, ghostly, apparition; a phantom image.

"It is just that there are certain senses of reality and presence that pertain to traditional media and you are not going to get them out of pixels. Every time I lecture, there is always some Gatesian nerd out there in the audience who sticks up his hand and says, 'Well, since we can perfectly reproduce an image on a high-fidelity television screen, why do you need to go and see the original?' And the answer is because paintings are things in the physical world, made out of colored mud smeared on a piece of cloth or a piece of board, with a stick with hairs on the end. They have a particular address to your body, and none of this comes across in the computer image."

--Robert Hughes