My Art

Today painting is spread across a broad spectrum of styles from representational to abstract. Representation is generally associated with tradition and academic training, while today's mantra "express yourself", seemingly promising unfettered and effortless creativity, is more closely associated with abstraction. Where an individual artist falls on this spectrum depends on emotional responses to these associations. I believe true art requires both craft and creativity. The necessity of mastering craft was understood by the great painters of the western tradition - drawing was Delacroix's daily prayer - as well as those of the east. Hokusai produced his masterpiece One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji when he was seventy five and hoped to make further progress by the time he was eighty. Then he said when he reached one hundred and ten "every dot and every stroke will be as though alive."

On the other hand, art is also the transformation of a common cultural reality through the artist's memory and imagination. This transformation is the creative aspect, and its measure of success is the degree to which the work inspires in the viewer a novel and interesting interpretation of that reality. Where a work of art emerges on the spectrum of styles should be of secondary importance. However, I have so far been unable to resolve the inner tensions that enforce my preference for the representational side.