Three Dimensional Paintings: An Experiment

I've been working on trying to develop three dimensional paintings in transparent layers for quite some time now. It seems like a natural extension of my painting style, and in my mind's eye I can see wonderful interplay between the separated layers. I began this work at an artist residency at Playa funded by the Ford Family Foundation.

I love this work. It is beautiful and opens the door for a more sculptural approach. My first attempts are wall hung paintings on glass. They are multiple sheets of glass slid into grooves in a deep frame. But there are some serious technical problems that need solving before I can go forward with them. I've put them on the back burner for quite some time until I can figure out where I want to go from here. They are really too heavy and fragile to be wall hung as I had planned. My first attempt is called Playa Sunrise. I Painted the bird and sky on the rear wooden panel, then monoprinted a ghost image of the bird on the second glass sheet. It is between two sheets of painted tree images from outside my cabin at Playa.

After I encountered the technical problems I mentioned, I decided to begin on my other strategy for 3-D work by making free-standing paintings. This would let me use many more layers and would be totally open to the light and 360 degrees of viewing. I tried one with tempered glass and one on plexi. The challenge on the glass was getting the paint to solidly adhere to the glass. With plexi that wasn't a problem but it scratches so easily. I am finally finishing the glass piece and I am challenged by the right glue to hold the layers permanently in place. It's a glass to wood bond, but I've found a glue and plan to glue today. I have to go forward before I'll see how it will all hold up, so I am plunging into the test. I am hoping to use this technique for a new project I'm working on in relationship to fresh water resources. I call this piece The Heart Of The Matter.

 

Cadmium: Wet

This painting, Cadmium:Wet, is an homage to the temperate rain forests of the pacific coast range. Although I completed it in 2014, I am thinking of it today as I sink into the slow dormant winter. The rain is falling and the trees are dripping. I am as much a part of this complex ecosystem as a bat, fern or vine maple. I am like a fish in winter cold water lying at the bottom of a stream, perhaps under a bank, inert.

The rains stop in late spring and the dry season begins, stretching out until mid fall. The summer dry season is a riot of propogation and fruiting as every living thing rushes to complete its life cycle. Humans harvest for their needs before the rains come. As a child growing up on a farm, I looked forward to the winter because we didn't have to work all the time. Winter was a time for study and the mind. 

Unlike tropical rain forests, our forest is a mix of conifers, alders and maples. The abundance of water and humidity supports infinite variations of plant and animal life in a timeless cycle. It also supports us. I am continually grateful for this forest that asks so little and offers so much. This time of year I become introspective. It is a time to grow roots, a time to reflect.

In this painting the humans are woven into the rain forest, ghosts in the landscape. We may not realize or remember but this is the habitat in which we live. Urban spaces have displaced the forest but the rains still come, and not far from our doors this rich environment is alive with biodiversity. The fish swimming through are the sea run cutthroat trout, indigenious to the Oregon coast range. This fish relies solely on the purity of the coastal watershed for its propagation.

Cadmium:Wet is now a part of the Southern Oregon University permanent art collection.