"In the Water"
JANUARY 14 - FEBRUARY 20, 2010at
685 Market St., Suite 290, San Francisco, CA
Artist statement
Water has multiple uses and a plurality of meanings biological, poetic, philosophical, religious. This show is devoted to all those who, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, find themselves enveloped by this primal medium.
Consider water – its melting malleability, its heavy weight, its propensity for changing in an instant the temperature of your body and, if it covers you completely, the power to make you stop breathing. It urges you to surrender.
This show is about the condition of being “ in the water” – which, by its force, causes you to forget pain, frustrations, worries – and makes you look deeper into yourself, to meditate, to reflect. And, speaking of reflection, one thing you see when you look in the water is a reflection of the sky…
And the leaden liquidity of a stormy sky reminds you that an essential symbol of civilization’s veneer – clothing – which makes you look stylish and protects you from cold and heat…just becomes extra weight when you it the water.
It make you feel alone. And, while reminding you that the most important moments in life we attend alone, water, with its own reality, renders prevailing rules and codes less important.
But the viewer should not be confused by the super-realistic style of these paintings – what they portray is not reality.
What you see are carefully staged, intellectually synthesized situations which have nothing to do with reality except in the most esoteric sense. The images forming this show are not the creations of a sharp-eyed photographer, but the refined products of the mind.
