Radium Springs

"Radium Springs"
Acrylic 24in. X 24in.

I painted this for my dad. Its actually a strange situation. When I paint something for someone, I have to really spend a lot of time getting into their head, or at least getting into my own perception of that person. I have trouble doing that with my father. He is a military man, and he is very much an introvert. I really don't know much about him other than the subtle hints of his character that he drops. He is a good person though, don't get me wrong, he is just very reserved whereas I am very emotional and very unstable :)....

But I had trouble understanding how to finish this, because I have trouble understanding him. He wanted me to paint this for him because he grew up near Radium Springs and he played there a lot as a child. But I had trouble understanding this on a deeper level (because I am a weirdo who has to analyze every detail and ascribe meaning to the meaningless).

So I got started on this and then it sat on my easel for 2 months untouched. I was terrified to approach it. Every time I started to work on it, I had to confront issues that I have with him and my relationship to him. We get along, but we just have little to say to one another. We are vastly different, and I have come to terms with that, and so has he. But in order to work on art for him I had to understand him more than I do, or else the art would be vapid. I had to chew on this for a while.

And eventually I came to a realization: still waters run deep. He is very much a thinking, caring, loving, and hurting individual, just like me. But he only lets traces of his emotions surface, when all along there is a vast intricate root structure beneath the surface, much like the cypress trees in the painting. On the outside, he presents himself as an aging passive character, but on the inside he is active and dynamic (much like the gnarly oak trees that cover South Georgia).

This project taught me much about the concepts of aging, emotion, character, life, and continuity. I hope he enjoys his painting.

Bears in the City

"Bears in the City"
Acrylic on canvas panel

I painted these for two of my best friends, Dave and Brittney. They just moved to Marietta, and this was a welcome/birthday gift for the two of them. They are very cool people and I wish them the best in everything. I haven't worked on any art in a while, and they were both very good inspiration for me to get back into the game, Thanks guys!
These were painted on small panels, with pre-stretched, gessoed canvas stretched across. I did the background wet in wet, and continuously misted it as I was working so that the final result would look almost like it was water color. The buildings were painted using the back end of the brush in wet paint. Soon as it was dry, I painted the bears on top using thicker layers. I actually didn't mix any medium in this time, It was all just acrylic paint and water. I figured that the pre-gessoed canvas would bleed enough waxy medium to keep it glossy.

Flower Murals

"Flower Murals"
Acrylic

I painted this for a client in Albany, GA.

Wonderroot Art show

"Wonderroot Art show"
2 24''X24'', 1 8''X12'',
Acrylic on canvas

Paintings Currently on sale/display at the Wonderroot Community Arts Center in Decatur, GA. The gallery title was "I love Atlanta". Blurry pictures---they were taken in a hurry, I'll re-post better photos once I get the chance!

Update: The small painting of the city got stolen off the wall of the gallery! I guess I should be flattered....

Miscellaneous Decorative Studies

"Miscellaneous Decorative Studies"
Mixed media, Various sizes

A sample of the recent types of decorative compositional color studies I have been working on.

Lungs

"Lungs"
Acrylic and pastel on canvas 24x24

I've been waking up with asthma nightly. It's something I have struggled with my whole life. People take their physical mechanism for granted, and I painted this to confront the viewer with their own biological functionality.

Bookends

"Bookends"
24x24
acrylic on canvas

This was inspired by the song "Old Friends" by Simon and Garfunkel:

"Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
of the high shoes of the old friends

Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears"

The Promise of Cycles

"The Promise of Cycles"
Acrylic on Canvas 24 in. X 24 in.

Life is changing for a lot of people. I might soon (or imminently) be out of a job. It has been a possibility for a while, but now it seems a lot more sudden. I was afraid. And sad. Completely at the mercy of pessimism and negativity. How does one rid themselves of these feelings?

Some people have religion to turn to at times like this. Some people say God has a plan. Is there a cosmic agenda in my life, or in anyone's life? Are we that separate from our world that it exist FOR US, as merely a setting? In which our patterns of being are ruled? Or is the opposite true, in which there exists a state of "chaos" in which the plans and motives of our lives become disrupted? Or can we see evidence of the mobile patterns of being IN nature?

The Bible says "To everything there is a season". The Buddhists call it Samsara. The Zen masters called it Dharma. The Atheists call it Continuous Probablility Distribution.

This sunset is how I see that metaphor. There are nothing but cycles and patterns in nature. There is no chaos. And that is comforting.

Fontana Lake

"Fontana Lake"
Acrylic on Canvas

From David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous:
"Caught up in a mass of abstractions, our attention hypnotized by a host of human-made technologies that only reflect us back upon ourselves, it is all too easy for us to forget our carnal inherence in a more-than-human matrix of sensations and sensibilities. Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, sounds, and shapes of an animate Earth; our eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other eyes, as our ears are attuned by their very structure to the howling of wolves and the honking of geese. To shut ourselves off from these other voices, to continue by our life-styles to condemn these other sensibilities to the oblivion of extinction, is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact and conviviality with what is not human. Only in reciprocity with what is Other do we begin to heal ourselves."

Fontana Dam

"Fontana Dam, N.C."
Acrylic on Canvas

This was a Christmas gift for my mother. It is based on a photograph that Jill took when we were on top of Fontana Dam on December 7th. It is an incredible place, full of beauty and presence. It's one of those few places in the world where you can silence the voices of civilization and listen to the quiet peace of pure existence.

When we were up there, my feet were on solid ground, but my spirit was soaring.

Pensacola Beach

"Pensacola Beach"
Acrylic on Canvas

This was a gift for Jill. On Thanksgiving, we went and saw her sister in Pensacola. We all ended up going to the beach, and when we got there, I was mesmerized by how beautiful the beach was in winter. Life is beautiful all the time, our planet has treasures hidden everywhere for us to admire every single day. This painting represents a major change in my artistic journey. Nothing I could ever paint will rival the fragile beauty that surrounds us. So my focus began to shift here, from exploring reality through the self, to exploring reality through the admiration of the phenomenological experience of communing with my immediate environment.

My Back Yard

"My Back Yard"
Acrylic and Pastel on Board

"Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient associations with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air,"---David Abram

Buddha

"Buddha"
Pastel on Wall

Written next to him is the words of Atisha, 4th century:

The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances

I like Ray Bradbury

Untitled, and inspired by Ray Bradbury.

Greed

"Greed"
Acrylic on Basement Wall

I had a lot of financial worries on my mind when I painted this. Sometimes art can be an exorcism of our own personal demons. Financial fear is a demon strangling a lot of people right now. This was my attempt to get the bastard off my back.

Samsara

"Samsara"
Pastel on Jared's Wall

This is my personification of life, death, and the process of rebirth, if it exists. With a little bit of sexual imagery thrown in. Originally was a sketch that I drew at work. Jared let me draw this on his wall one day while we listened to Dub Trio.

Self Portrait

"Self Portrait"
Pastel on Paper Bag

Don't ask me, I just draw this stuff...

The Nature of Response

"The Nature of Response"
Acrylic and Pastel on Board

Why do we respond to stimulus the way that we do? I drew this after having a bad day at work, I had gotten in an argument with a co-worker, and I was extremely upset at what I viewed as a lack of control over my own anger. I wanted to explore the process of cause and effect. The faces are our emotional responses and the figure is an invader who chooses to pull things out of us, destroying the order that we have constructed.

Portrait of Jill and Lexie

"Portrait of Jill and Lexie"
Acrylic on Illustration Board

My ladies, who I loooooove very much....This was a fun exercise. I wanted to experiment with a very limited pallet, consisting of just complimentary colors. A la prima.

Diligence

"Diligence"
Pastel on Board

This was an early experiment in automatic drawing. I think it represents the state of mind I was in when I started working full time hahaha!

The Elephant in the Room

"The Elephant in the Room"
Acrylic and Pastel on Board

This was an automatic drawing, I think it represents the urge to tell somebody something that they are not going to like to hear.

The Zen of Evolution

"The Zen of Evolution"
Acrylic and Pastel on Board

This is about the nature of personal change. What inspires us to change? Is it a process that happens as a result of our environment, or is it a choice? Passive or active? Are we lured by desires, motivated by the illusion of progress, drawn by the combination of seeing and thinking? Or is change something that we have no choice in experiencing?

Hidden Tranquility

"Hidden Tranquility"
Acrylic and Pastel on Board

Pain can be a terrible burden to carry. Sometimes we have to sit on our negativity and enjoy the beautiful things in life, however small they are. Zen in a tornado.

Perfect Moment

"The Perfect Moment"
Acrylic an Pastel on Board

Obviously, this is about sex. But here I am attempting to describe the human experience by removing the humans. We are left only with the emotions, the joining of forms, and the phenomenological experience.

The Fundamental Flaw in the Theory of Reason

"The Fundamental Flaw in the Theory of Reason"
Pastel and Acrylic on Board

There exists a discrepancy between what we say, what we see and what we think. How then, can we actually know reality? Is there even a way to know? All experience is subjective. Sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing---all are subjective, qualitative talents. Science exists as an extension of these senses. It is the relationship between the external and the internal that defines reality; The conversation between the object and the objectifier. Reality cannot be described accurately without this mental coitus between form and perception.

The Bones of Childhood

"The Bones of Childhood"
Pastel on Board

This was the funeral for my youth, and the only people present were my new found adult senses of Servitude (the robot), my Inner Child, and Diligence (the ant).

Tomorrow's First Edition

"Tomorrow's First Edition"
Acrylic on canvas

We are grounded in a block of immobility, caught up in our own fears about the future. We have become blind to the reality before us, and as a result our external reality is BECOMING what we read and what we fear. It is a self-fulfilling form of prophecy. I based the composition on the old religious idol reliquary images, because of the almost pious attitude that some hold to the media. Our mode of discourse has become our model of reason, a new dark age brought about by an over exposure of information.