Carrousel, (two panels) oil on canvas
detail from Vaselina Springs I-X, mixed media
suggest time and memory.
It’s too obvious of a trick. But I also really love gray. This gray that I’m
using, Payne’s Gray, when you use the cool gray next to a brownish
gray, it looks blue. That’s the thing about color; it exists in relationship
You’ve definitely captured that dreamlike aspect, and painting to other colors. You can make colors look really different depending on
is such a nice medium to capture the feeling with. If you used what you accompany it with. I like the idea of having something that
synthetic colors, it wouldn’t come across as a memory, but as a looks like a dark, cool red, which actually is considered in the brown
more factual representation. Did you use the limited palette for family. But you can make it look red if you use it in a certain way.
that specific reason?
Yes, I wanted it to be more tonal, and more like a drawing. Some of my And using colors in your grays add dimension to your pieces.
early inspirations for these paintings were the black and white, post-im- They are not flat at all. Sometimes with paintings, when they are
pressionist drawings by Seurat, which were done on textured paper. more photorealistic, your attention is drawn to the surface, but
They’re just suggestions, nothing is hard-edged or spelled out. There are your work feels like it is going back in space.
no lines. The tonal variations make up the image. When I first started I’ve never considered myself a photorealistic painter. People have dethe abstract paintings, I was working completely in black and white, scribed my previous work as photorealistic, but almost all of them are
stripping down to essentials. Part of the reason I work with the palette done from life or imagination. There was no photography involved;
it was done with a mirror. Sometimes I would use a model, but then
is to give myself limitations. It is also about creating the mood.
make up the room. It was never about reproducing a photograph. I had
I think it’s interesting that you chose not to make your images been doing these very tight, realistic paintings—very labor-intensive
black and white because that could have been an easy way to and very smooth. After a point, I completely broke from that and startsome parts are indistinct, but because you see them in the context of
the painting, it becomes a cohesive image. I like the effect that it seems
dreamlike.
Orlando’s Art Scene, v. 1.4
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