I like a painting that does something, like a machine does something: you turn it on and it functions “Since Courbet, it’s been believed that painting is addressed to the retina.…The retinal shudder!” — Marcel Duchamp1 shudder // shutter The click of the shutter, the click of the cliché, but lets come back to that […]

I had never before or after felt this anxiety so intensely. The jump would mean letting go of that precious section and I would have to TRUST that something else would appear — and that something would resolve and complete the painting. Brenda Goodman, Breakthrough, 1985, oil on canvas, 60 x 84 in. All images: […]

So much had already been said and photographed about Detroit’s abandonment and the so-called images of “ruin porn” that fetishized the cities misfortune, that when I first went back to explore my hometown in 2010, I began to question the motives of those who had preceded me and their intentions. After all, there were still […]

I have always been concerned with meaning, allusion and narrative – something outside “pure” painterly concerns. Barnett Newman made great “pure” paintings, but I have always felt that I was made of baser clay. I want to tell a story, even if that story is cryptic or fragmentary. Prior to 2011, the focus of my […]

“I had a break-through in my painting when I began thinking metaphorically. It started with a vein in a forehead, then the realization that everything could be vascular. So tendrils of hair became capillary, as did tendrils of light, stripes in a shirt were arterial, a scrunchie hairband a thrombosis. This was a key for […]

“It felt like a discovery for me—and I liked the idea of a kind of cyclical studio process where the object and subject get conflated.” Erin O’Keefe discusses a photograph from her series, “The Flatness.” © Erin O’Keefe. The Flatness #11, 2013, Inkjet print on matte rag paper. Image courtesy of the artist. This photograph […]

To aim for a more complete expression of reality is not at odds with abstraction. Reality in abstract painting exists where what is seen impacts the body physically… Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81 (Phillips Collection, Washington D.C). Included under the fair use exemption. (Click to enlarge) Renoir’s vision for painting was as […]

It doesn’t matter if it is painting, sculpture, drawing or photography. They all unravel in time. The work is about temporality and ways to relate to it. A durational temporality that is exposed to light. Nazafarin Lotfi, papier-mâché and wood, 2015. © Nazafarin Lotfi. Courtesy of the artist. I am drawn to sculpture as a […]

Here, I give the feelings to my grandfather. The impossibility of believing that his country, his town, (his life, his memories, his friends, his romances) exist…the collision of reality and fantasy that constitute the immigrant's longing. Poetry A TABLE THAT GOES ON FOR MILES The women’s legs look better every year. His basement, still strung […]

…we only see what we want to see. Some say we only see what we already know. But I think more is possible, that we can be opened to deeper meanings, because all understanding comes through metaphor. Ken Schles, Drowned In Sorrow, 1984, from Invisible City. © Ken Schles. Image courtesy of the artist and […]