Still Lifes

The stilll lifes started out as a joke almost, ʻWhen youʼre at the museum, how do you tell the good paintings from the lesser ones? The best one have the largest frames.ʼ Not true of course, but I started associating paintings and frames as a unit. This is where the Still Life series began.

The first ones were simple still lifes with frame, though everything was just a bit off. The frames were not square, there wasnʼt firm delineation between image and frame with each one bleeding into the other, colors were bright and well saturated. It was all a bit ʻtongue-in-cheek,ʼ poking a bit of fun at the acepted masters and their huge gold leaf frames. At the same time though it did point to other possibilities.

This led to a long series of still life paintings with their frames. Begun in 1986, even today, I complete five or six a year. Every one I make gives me a direction for the next one. Over the years they have changed, but still maintain the basic concept. The items in the still life vary from time to time, but I return most often to a simple tabletop, a table cloth, a bottle of wine, several pieces of fruit, with or without a bowl and, of course, a wide gold frame.

Another aspect that interests me is that the paintings are just as three-dimensional as the frames. Most are built using small scraps of wood and left-over cut offs (I couldnʼt possibly use all of them, but I do keep quite a few from going to the landfill). Using the scrap provides a bas relief piece that only suggests a still life- itʼs the paint that brings the image together, flattens it and makes it read as a unit.