NOTE most current painting is presented first in present to past order. Some current painted ideas may seem strange but that is because they are built up from previous painted ideas.

A painting based upon a world of background turbulence evolving into geometric shapes and forms of matter.

A painting based upon experiencing the subtle interactive relationship between two cool-blueish vertical lines from the background and foreground worlds.

A painting based upon warm orangey-yellows contrasted with cool red-violet

A painting based upon the Ukrainian Flag

A symbol that our peace and happiness may be a matter of:

luck at being born into a happy family:
luck at being born into a happy community:
luck at being born into a happy country:

being born into a happy world may not be possible

Just enjoy the now of existence

Tints of acrylic paint distressed to mimic the ravages of time

Just to the left of centre is a long strip of torn cotton net cloth dropped onto the hardened pool of acrylic paint.

Where did it come from? Why is it there?

Real life gives us surprises which makes us want answers

Art says just explore existence

Modified painting from 2021: completely changing it's perception.

I frequently go back change, modify, overpaint a previous painting. This one always bothered me so it was left for a few years.

Always trying to develop greater sensitivity to the stimulus-response movements of my eye's micro-muscles when consciously scanning for differences in the non-verbal cusp region of my painted strokes.

There is something about the blue-ish-grey background that bothers me. Wouldn't be surprised if a future change is in order.

The blue-ish-grey background has been changed for a: soft neutral greenish yellow very close in tone to the blueish grey surrounding the more coloured entities.

I find my eye seeking the soft warmth of the ground as an escape from blueish grey surround of the coloured entities. Not sure where all this is going.

As a child I look at a colour and no name comes to mind, I look at a graphic mark and no name comes to mind : and yet while looking at these colours and marks: I experience a subtle visual feeling I have no name for and am only slightly aware one thing somehow being and feeling different than the other.

This painting tries to get back to my early experiences of the fresh new world by trying to not-look-like anything we experience in our daily lives. It is a fresh experience: an artistic way of experiencing the empirical colour-shape-sensa below the level of conscious thought.

Art is a meditative form of my being in the now.

Some would say: a meditative alternative for sensitive people to escape their conscious awareness of the horrors in this world by seeking refuge in an imaginary world. Otherwise we are forced face the helplessness of the dammed.

Mofified graphics for the painting sourced from the 'Book of Signs : Rudolf Koch'.

Exploring ancient linear graphics modified and sourced from 'The Book of Signs: Rudolf Koch': combining, twisting, reducing: all in an attempt to feel the magic of making a simple mark.

Trying to get back to that time in my childhood when making a mark on a sheet of paper was amazing.

As I get older my attention goes back in time: trying to recall those first moments of discovery. Moments we loose as we go through life.

There is an organic quality about these simple shapes.

The 'Y' shapes (1) remind my hands of moving gently over the smooth contoured varnished surfaces of Victorian furniture. (2) The smooth white and black piano keys come into my touch memory against the lingering sound vibrations happily dancing in the air. (3) The 'Y' shapes also recall my grandmother taking me - about the age of four - to the outdoor farmers market. I still recall the sea of legs surrounding and rubbing against me as we travelled through those legs from stall to stall.

Exploring relationships between shapes and their surrounding shapes which, unavoidably become symbols of cultural interactions between self; other and self-existence within the world.

Pre Christian Cultures experienced the phallus-power to suddenly intrude into their body-consciousness as the life force of pleasureful experience urging to become as-one with a separate other.

The casting out of our ancestors from the Garden of Eden myth has been connected to an evil sexual act of becoming one-with-another for which humans must forever suffer.

Without the evil act of one-with-another: would the Garden of Eden ever have more than two people?

Art therefore has a legitimate role in exploring the existential life-forming and life-living cosmological forces acting through the interaction of artistic materials.

In Presence no. 4 the small red, yellow, blue, verticality oriented rectangle is a simple coloured object like a flower surrounded by softer colours and shapes. The phallus-like-shape blends into the background as part of the cosmological life force.

Wanted to explore the magical roots of painting. Ancient Nordic Runes, (sound representations using simple lines), provides a mysterious written language.

Covered my canvas with four (4) lines of Runic characters which gives it that ancient magical quality.

I needed to submerge the characters in the illusion of past history: using dozens of thin transparent glazes built up over time provided the effect. My father was a cabinet maker specializing in antique furniture. I recall spending many boa-ring hours rubbing French polish in layers of 1/1000th of an inch into fine quality wood.

I needed something to denote the present so I researched heraldic graphics to provide inspiration and, arrived at a small overall shape reflective rectangle quartered in the golden section.

The painting's colours and shapes fuse past and present time periods into one.

The warm transparent reds and soft greens gently obscuring the unusual marks point back to an earlier time. The heraldic coloured rectangle floats closer to my viewing presence. Their interaction resolves into a here-now and there-then relationship.

I decided not to crop out the frame in which it resides. There is something about that upper left blue area that bothers me.

It was built up using a tabular approach which covered the canvas with cloud's of colour-tints from the bluish left to the greenish right. An area of dots were placed right of centre. Next a linear thumbprint-motif was added and made more rectangular in the central area. More shapes were added: randomly extracted from childhood memory structures.

It felt too busy with all these bits each vying for attention and reflecting my early childhood desire to receive constant attention.

I must grow up and thus begin the subordination of these competing bits. Some were relegated to the depths of memory and others brought closer and closer to consciousness.

This painting reflects my personal attempt to find my authentic self submerged in the depth's of my memory. For me it is a non verbal journey using graphic shapes and colour.

There is also an awareness that the authentic me must go through a civilizing process in order to become a member of the social contract, the tribe, the group, the clan, society.

I cannot be just a me! as I must become a mature adult we!

Finding the authentic me does not mean becoming a selfish self-centered blob: but, discovering the depth of accomplished maturity as I evolve from an out-of-control adolescent into a mature human being and, am aware of and, accept the struggle through my stages of growth.

During the painting process I continuously clear my conscious mind from the names of colors, shapes and textures in order to consciously experience eye stimulation and non-verbal descriptions of feelings.

My eyes become text-less-consciousness as my mind tries to give awareness to subtle feelings gently peculating just beyond the edge of my consciousness.

These subtle feelings seem to-be evoked by a type of tension generated within my mind as it responds to differences between and among the coloured shaps.

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I named the following: what might become a series 'presence', because, it is just itself. I can hate it, like it, hate parts of it, like parts of it just as I would when looking in a mirror or at another person.

Yes:my feelings towards it can swing from: min to min, hour to hour and, day to day,

The following creations normally live in the pages of medieval sacred illuminated manuscripts and, having always found them interesting, I decided to bring them out into the light.

I decided to work with very fluid knot patterns based on the organic intertwining of plant roots, branches and leaves.

Picked up an oval canvas someyears back. Thought I could do something with it. The clothing shapes in the original were each bordered by a black line causing them to look like a heavy suit of armour. I wanted a lighter airier more spiritual look.



I am still uncertain as to it's finished or not finished status.

Meanwhile I have begun another painting. Which has been completed and added above.

Notice the use of celtic knot patterns to interweave the beards, hair and limbs. The small body / large head were standard to these patterns and nor do the patterns contain female images.

I am still uncertain as to it's finished or not finished status as I keep thinking the ground should be darker as in the one above.

Meanwhile I have begun another painting which has been completed and added above.

An amalgamation of two historical mandalas in keeping with the spiritual theme illustrated by my header photograph from the sacred site.

The acrylic colors appear to reflect their light mainly from an internal blueish source such that the composition may be used to experiment with a form of self hypnosis.

Focusing upon the central blueish light stimulates the visual system into consciousness of the quieting in the now experience.