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Daniel Alan Gordon
It's About Love
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Scroll down to view exhibition. Get a behind the scenes look at the end!
"Acadia, A Break in the Clouds"
18" x 14" x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board
One of the features of our Maine trip this summer was the persistent fog that had descended over the Cranberry Isles and the East Coast in general in July. Our fearless guide and friend remained undaunted in showing Lavinia and I the amazing coastline up North. The afternoon we explored Acadia the fog certainly joined us, but in a moment of true natural beauty it lifted just as we were ascending the park. This painting is based on that first clear glimpse we got of the scale and drama of the sea and rock formations that make up so much of Acadia.
"Beach Point-Truro Sunset"
18” x 22” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board
After about 25 years of time on the outer portion of Cape Cod, Lavinia and I, for the first time, spent a week exploring Truro. Provincetown is the last and outermost town of the Cape, Truro is located right next door. Long story short, we loved it there! Our cottage was located directly on Cape Cod Bay, with a perfect view of Provincetown. From this vantage point, the sun sets over the strip of land that makes up the Eastern most part of Truro and Provincetown. This painting is inspired by the first evening’s sunset. Believe it or not the actual sunset was even more dramatic than my painting.
"A Beautiful Little Wonderland, Chanticleer Gardens"
13.5" x 11.5" x 2"
Gouache on Watercolor Paper
This gouache painting captures one of so many gorgeous, and I would say intimate, little nooks Chanticleer provides. You could almost miss this spot if you walked the grounds of the garden too quickly. Our friends and guides for this trip made sure we did not miss it. We paused here, and this spot brought me back to some of the streams I used to experience as a kid. My friends and I would hike the woods near my house for hours and hours. These are the places I picture and hold close, especially when life becomes a bit more complicated.
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"Berkeley Heights Sunset"
19” x 37” x 2"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
I painted this in the winter in my shop looking out my window. I was daydreaming about the shore line and was excited to try some new colors for the foreground and the sky. Not only that, but I was playing with new colors and I experimented with thinning the paint and employed some tools that I made to move the paint in broad strokes.
"A Blue Slate with Blossoms"
11.75" x 8" x 3"
Walnut Box with Oil Panting
and Linen Interior
Here is a painting and box design that lives right at the intersection of art and craft, a target that symbolizes much of my work. I kept the painting’s element minimal to accentuate this motif.
"Boat Meadow Sunset #8"
19.5” x 37.5” x 2.75"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Boat Meadow Beach is one of the smallest bay beaches in the Cape Cod town of Eastham. Its proximity to where our family stays each year makes it a go to for the sunset each evening. For a modest-sized beach, the sunsets can be incredibly dramatic. The colors represented here are derived directly from one such night-truly no hyperbole in the use of the oranges, yellows, and reds!
"Brace Yourself"
15" x 12" x 2"
Oil Paint and Marquetry on Canvas
I combine my love of marquetry and oil painting to bring the compositions to life. The biggest challenge with mixed media work is finding an effective balance between material and composition. I never want to insert a medium because I have some technical ability with it. Rather, I want to use the varied mediums to convey thoughts and feelings that are difficult to express without both.
"Brussels Flower Shop"
41.5” x 31” x 2.5”
Oil Paint on Hardboard with Handmade Dovetailed Oak Frame
This painting is an overt homage to the design periods of Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts. The whiplash curves of the flower stems are a key element from the Nouveau period. I am using that shape here to create movement. The background colors are many layers, giving the richness of texture that I wanted to frame each of the brighter flowers. My intent here was for the background, coupled with the tight curves of the stems, and the bright and deep colors of the flowers, to come together like a favorite song.
"A Bundle of Love and Wildflowers"
12" x 12” x "2
Oil Paint On Linen
with Gold Leaf
This floral motif is one of my favorites to paint. I am moved by the color and energy such compositions allow me to express and experience. I am working to evolve with each new work. In this painting it started out with a different sort of background color and blending of those colors that drove the rest of the painting.
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"Cape Cod Bay with Fresh Paint"
14” x 18” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
I love to paint Cape Cod Bay, no secret there. This painting was done with a new group of oil paints I purchased in late Spring. The paint has walnut oil for its base, as opposed to linseed oil, the paint I typically use. I have added the walnut oil-based paint to my inventory of high-end oil paints because of the vibrancy I can achieve with some of the colors offered in this paint line. I am really enjoying the consistency of this paint as well as many of the application techniques I use.
"Chancticleer Blossom #1"
16" x 13" x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Earlier this summer our friends, who also happen to be master gardeners, introduced Lavinia and me to the Chanticleer Gardens, in Wayne, PA. It has been a banner year for us to take in such incredible gardens, Longwood in spring and Chanticleer. The Chanticleer is less formal than Longwood, but you can feel its evolution occurring right as you walk through the grounds. It is so alive and yet so calm and beautiful all at once. This painting is a close-up of the wildflowers we took in at the beginning of our visit.
"Chanticleer Wildflowers"
24” x 37” x 2.75"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
This piece is also derived from our experience at Chanticleer Gardens. For this painting I wanted to continue to focus in on the flowers and try to convey the emotion of the experience. Places like this garden, and often museums provide such stimuli and intense bursts of inspiration. Fortunately, painting is a great vehicle for such expression.
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"Cherry Blossoms, 2023"
13.75" x 13.75” x "2
Watercolor on Aquaboard with Linen Mat
This painting allowed me to return to a favorite motif-the cherry blossom, but I had the chance to do the work in gouache, i.e. opaque water color. Because the gouache is so opaque and dries to matte finish, it encourages a more illustrative sort of approach. This is something that drives much of the gouache/watercolor works in this show.
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"Cold Storage Beach"
18” x 22” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board with Hand Made Walnut Frame
Upon arriving in Truro, I took a drive to explore our location. I stumbled on to Cold Storage Beach. The beach is quietly nestled in among a cluster of Truro homes and cottages. I immediately was taken in by its calm, yet expansive atmosphere. Late in the afternoon there were only a few people on the beach and the sky had the subtle gray blues you see in my painting-a beautiful spot.
"Concentration of Flowers"
15.5" x 12.75" x 1.25"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board
This painting is formed through multiple layers of painted flowers one over the other. The final colors and shapes are achieved through a steady reworking of each preceding layer. I often work in this manner, which allows for the painting to naturally become slightly abstracted. This process often yields the true feeling I am seeking to express with my work.
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"Copper, Flowers and Mason Jar"
13.75" x 13.75” x "2.5
Oil Paint on Linen with Handmade Cherry Frame Copper Leaf
This painting started out as a fairly traditional bouquet of flowers in a vase, or in this case, a mason jar. It took on its own identity as a full painting as I worked the background colors to get the warm copper hue. Once I had fully painted the bouquet I began to pull and stretch the paint. I did this to represent the underlying energy such a still life often presents. It was here that I felt the painting come into its own. That identity was further anchored when I added the copper leaf to the painting’s edges and built a cherry frame for it.
"East Hampton, Anticipation of the Surf"
18” x 21” x 1.25"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
I have always been enamored with that moment when you are near the ocean, sometimes in a car or while walking, when your vantage point to the surf and the beach are obscured, but then you get a glimpse of the water. Sometimes the road is high enough that as you look through the car window you get the full impact of seeing the vast ocean up ahead. Sometimes you are just walking the path to the beach, and you get more framed views through the high seagrass and catch a glimpse of the water. Either way, it is always exciting and grows anticipation of getting close to the power and innate attraction of the water. This piece’s composition is all about that feeling.
"Eight Flowers Woodcut and…"
22.5” x 13.5” x 2.5”
Basswood Carving with Handmade Walnut Frame and Gold Leaf
This woodcut grows out of my love for drawing this kind of composition: carving it and then printing it. Through each step of the process, I can yield new finished works in a slightly different medium. An added benefit is that the more I print from the block the more interesting the prints get, which all adds to a beautiful well-worn patina the original carved woodcut block takes on.
"Filtered Light Through the Clouds"
18” x 22” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Many of my landscape paintings, although representative of very specific locales, tilt towards the abstract. In this painting instead of starting with a particular location in mind, I wanted to reverse the process and start with an abstract form and then bring in some familiar landscape/seascape elements as the painting evolved. I am happy with the result; the sequencing brought some expressiveness in the painting strokes and brush work that really communicates what I was working toward.
"Finding the Center of the Bouquet"
18.5" x 20.5" x 1.5"
Oil on Hardboard with Handmade White Oak Frame
This painting progressed through a series of drawings. I had to rework parts of a few different bouquets to form the one you see here. I eventually was able to edit those sketches to create the lay-out for this composition. I was working from some dramatic flowers I had in the shop at the time. I was gratified when the painting process tied together all of the various parts I used for inspiration. I really love the expressiveness of this piece.
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"Floral Daydream in Crimson and White"
12.5" x 9.5" x 3"
Walnut Box with Oil Panting
and Linen Interior
This piece leverages the mix of rich violets, earth colors and greens to create a composition for the floral elements. The use of a clean and simple walnut structure surrounding the painting completes the work in the best possible way.
"Fort Hill Landscape, Eastham, MA"
12" x 8" x 3"
Cherry Box with Oil Panting
and Linen Interior
Fort Hill is a historic district that is part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The park area features walking paths that cut through marshes on the ocean side of Eastham. You can see the very edges of the Atlantic Ocean just past the extensive marshes. It is so subtle and picturesque that every time we visit I have been inspired to create paintings from this location.
"Highland Museum, Truro, MA"
18” x 22” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board
Lavinia and I found this museum by chance while visiting Truro this past summer. The museum is housed in a big building several hundred yards from the lighthouse and the attached buildings pictured in my painting. These buildings were moved back off the Cape Cod beach and dunes to preserve them given the ever changing and eroding Cape Cod dunes. This has been the case with multiple lighthouses along the Cape Cod National Seashore.
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"Irene’s Cherry Blossoms I"
15.25” x 16” x 2.5”
Oil Paint on Hardboard with Handmade Cherry Frame
The house across the street used to be the home of my neighbor Irene. Irene, unfortunately, is no longer with us, but her family still lives there. Every spring, an explosion of color slowly unfolds in Irene’s yard. First the forsythia, then cherry blossoms, white and pink, then the green of the maple and oak leaves filling in behind and eventually even some deep reds. I look forward to each year to look out my shop window so see this inspiring scenery unfold.
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"Irene’s Cherry Blossoms II"
13.5” x 20” x 2.5"
Oil Paint on Hardboard with Handmade Cherry Frame
As my original description noted in Cherry Blossoms I this a yearly inspirational view for me.
"Keesville, NY"
15” x 20” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board with Hand Made Walnut Frame
I have had the opportunity to visit Keesville, NY a few times with a group of friends. This painting depicts the view we see from a walking bridge located in this old industrial Adirondack hamlet that stretches across the Ausable River. I love the glimpse you get of the town and the sense of its history you can feel from this spot.
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"Longwood Garden, View from Atop Tulip Garden"
18” x 27” x 2.5"
Oil Paint on Hardboard with Handmade Cherry Frame
I had the chance to visit Longwood for the first time this Spring. I was blown away to say the least. We met our friends there for a weekend to catch up and to take in the gardens. The tulip display was in full tilt and was quite impressive. This painting is based on a tulip explosion photo I took. I suppose a respite of green and mature trees in the sea of color helped the tulips to reset a bit.
"Longwood Garden Out the Back Path"
18” x 27” x 2.25"
Oil Paint on Hardboard with Handmade Walnut Frame
This painting is derived from the Longwood Garden visit. The launch point for the composition is the vast and rolling landscape from the back end of the gardens. I started with this view and then took some creative liberties so I could capture other beautiful sites that we saw on our visit.
"Mid-Century Marquetry"
14" x 9" x 3"
Mid-Century Marquetry
I upended my more customary method of design for marquetry projects to produce the design that adorns this box. The motif is achieved through the cutting and recutting of each element that makes up the whole design. This segmented approach produces a very unique effect, one challenging to produce in marquetry. This is a very time consuming process, but produces a finished piece that is truly linked to the way I might produce such a design in oil paint. The challenge to think through my mediums in this way is very valuable to me.
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"Mixed Media Toolbox
(There's a Hand Tool for That)"
15" x 12" x 2"
Oil Paint, Marquetry on Canvas
I combine my love of marquetry and oil painting to bring the compositions to life. The biggest challenge with mixed media work is finding an effective balance between material and composition. I never want to insert a medium because I have some technical ability with it. Rather, I want to use the varied mediums to convey thoughts and feelings that are difficult to express without both.
"Montserrat"
12” x 15.5” x 2"
Oil Paint on Linen with Handmade Cherry Frame
Lavinia and I traveled to Antigua this year. While we were there, we took a sunset sail beginning at a harbor in Antigua and then set off toward the island of Monsterrat. We anchored close to the island and Lavinia along with some of the others snorkeled a bit. I stayed on the boat and took some photos, knowing once we returned home, I would want to paint the scene.
"My Beach House Window Left"
17" x 13" x 2"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Recently I completed a commission inspired by the Jersey shore. Its creative challenge was to view the beach and seascape looking both to the left and right and to capture the energy of the midday sun, the surf and sand. The double panels allow me to play with the idea of splitting my view of the seascape, as though I am looking through a window. I also worked with the idea of one view that is split but also has a bit of mirroring that interplays between each painting.
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"My Beach House Window Right"
17" x 13" x 2"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
"Out on the Lake at Dusk, Greenwood, ME"
8" x 13" x 1"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Our friends who live in a beautiful spot in Maine sent me a photo from a favorite lake that they spend many a sunset on. This painting is a direct response to receiving that very inspired photo. Recently I had the opportunity to see the lake and sunset in person and indeed it was spectacular.
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"Plein Air Painting Party"
15” x 18” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Linen Board
Actually, the only one painting was me; but Lavinia, our friends and their amazing dog together did a short hike over to a beautiful little beach area on Sutton Island. We arrived just before dusk-the sun was still high in the sky but beginning to make its descent. I brought my whole portable painting set-up, and as my companions patiently and quite supportive hung out as I worked to capture the place and moment. We drank beers and took in the beauty of the place and moment together. It remains one of my favorite times of the whole summer.
"Quiet Parade of Violets"
12" x 9.25" x 3"
Walnut with Oil Painting and Linen Interior
I wanted to create a warm white background for these violet flowers, and then use walnut lumber to complete my vision for this artwork. Since my first work with walnut, I have loved the beautiful and subtle hints of violet you see in its warm grain appearance. My ambition with the boxes is to create a symbiotic architectural element that compliments my paintings for the top of each of the boxes.
"Red Waterfall"
12" x 9.25" x 3"
Cherry Box will Oil Painting and Linen Interior
This piece is driven by the rich red painted background of the top and my desire to carry the top portion of the painting directly down the side of the box. I painted both the top and side surface at the same time while each painted surface was still attached. Upon completion of the painting, I separated the two and created a recess for the small section of painting featured on the box’s front.
"Road Back to Galle"
37” x 21” x 5.5”
Marquetry with White Oak Frame
Emile Galle has been one of the historic artists I return to again and again for inspiration. He was a leading figure of the Art Nouveau period. He designed along with his highly skilled staff of craftspeople incredible glass work and marquetry adorned furniture. I created this piece of marquetry while reading a new book I recently received on Galle’s work. This piece’s inspiration also connects to my own intuitive design sense to express natural form in marquetry. The pressing of the panel required careful preparation; the world-class craftsmen at Pollaro Custom Furniture gave me assistance for that very critical part of the marquetry process.
"Rock Harbor Sunset #9"
19" x 37.5" x 2.75"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Rock Harbor in Orleans on Cape Cod is a spot I return to every year with our family. It is one of my touchstone locations emotionally and structurally, from a natural beauty standpoint. The way the sea grasses and harbor frame the water way that leads out to the Cape Cod Bay are of endless interest to me. The sunsets are just so beautiful from this spot; I look forward to reinterpreting them again and again.
"Rock Harbor with a New Palette"
13.5" x 16.5" x 1"
Oil on Hardboard with Handmade Walnut Frame
This painting excites me because I was able to combine a familiar and esteemed location of the Cape with a palette of colors I had not tried before. The mix of umbers, violets and golds resonates for me in this piece. I like the interplay of these colors and values. In various ways this mix has been applied to many of the pieces throughout the show.
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"Scottish Botany"
11.5" x 9.25" x 3"
Cherry Box will Oil Painting and Linen Interior
I have admired the work of the Scottish painter, Joan Eardley, for quite some time. I love the energy and motion in her paintings. With many of the floral compositions I create it is that life and motion, especially in the piece’s foreground that I strive for. Here, I am working to bring an animated quality to the flowers while working against the calm grey/blue background.
"Sculpture of a Natural Order"
14" x 9" x 3"
Oil Paint on Multimedia Board with Handmade Walnut Cabinet and White Oak Interior
Sutton Island is an unscathed natural wonder. There are no roads or shops and only 16 homes housing families with deep ties to this special place. The waterfronts for much of the island feature rock formations and outcroppings, some modest and some quite dramatic. This painting is one of my responses to this distinct setting; a sort of mental compilation of the all the natural drama I was witnessing as we walked throughout the island.
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"Sunday Afternoon with our Japanese Maple"
15” x 15” x 1.5"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
In early summer I took my easel out to the driveway and just began to try to capture our old and very special Japanese maple tree. This painting is the result. My only intention when starting the work was to explore my brush strokes, I often employ this style of brushwork when I paint trees. I feel it is the truest essence of my expression I paint trees.
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"Sunflowers and Roses"
10.25" x 8.25" x 3"
Cherry Box will Oil Painting and Linen Interior
Over the winter Lavinia had brought home some beautiful sunflowers and roses. Inspired by them I took part of the bouquet out to the shop and created a few works. This is one of my favorites. I created a cherry box that would finish and complete the whole motif.
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"Sunset in Antigua"
17” x 11” x 2"
Watercolor on Aquaboard with Gold Leaf and Linen Frame
This painting takes its inspiration from a sun set sail in Antigua earlier this year. Upon docking back at the beach, this was the beautiful scene. It was grand and striking. Somehow the small painting has provided a nice medium to express the feeling of that moment.
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"Sweet Spring Magnolias"
27" x 22" x 2"
Oil Paint on Hardboard with Handmade Walnut Carved Frame
The magnolia trees are among the first to blossom. We have some gorgeous ones in our neighborhood that I love to watch each spring. We even have one that produces yellow/white flowers. This painting is taken directly from sketching the magnolia that is tucked into a tight space on the corner of Kline Blvd., not a majestic location to be sure. I think that’s what made the draping of its branches and blooms so noteworthy. A friend gave me some “scrap” walnut cut from pieces in the shop he works in. The day I brought the walnut home, I got to work on the frame for this painting. The frame’s design grew as organically as the painting did, a true gift when such things can happen for us.
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"Thinking About Scituate Bay"
16.5” x 13.5” x 2"
Gouache on Aquaboard with Gold Leaf and Linen Mat
I am currently working on a large-scale painting of an amazing sunrise on Scituate Bay, Massachusetts. This is one of the studies I produced from that experience. A brilliant idea on the part of the client and friend to insist we go out and experience the sunrise firsthand by setting out at 4:30 am and then seeing what develops.
"Three Flowers and..."
12" x 14" x 1"
Oil Paint on Linen with Hand Carved Walnut and White Oak Frame
This painting encapsulates one of the key themes of this year’s exhibition. I am referring to the way the painting’s frame forms an architectural framework for the artwork. I wanted the carved detail in the frame to quietly “speak” to the painted composition. Again, reasserting that sweet spot where art and craft intersect.
"The Very Elegant Physics of Flowers"
19" x 13” x 1.25"
Oil Paint on Aluminum Hardboard
I think we all have those periods, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, when we have thoughts bouncing around our heads and hearts but cannot fully articulate them. If we’re fortunate, eventually those ideas do crystallize into something cohesive and understandable. This painting is the physical manifestation of one of those periods for me. The mixing of the linear and the organic, natural motif is a constant source of inspiration to me. It is the way so much of the world presents to us. The fact that the piece is on linen adds the texture I was after. I relish this piece because I could express what I had been trying to articulate for a while and once “said”, I was happy with the result.
"A Very Verdant Moon"
12.5" x 9.5" x 3"
White Oak Box with Oil Painting and Linen Interior
I enjoyed having a sphere of some kind within this composition to build upon. This piece speaks to integrating a floral and leaf motif around that sphere. I knew this painting would work best vertically in its architectural back drop. Thus, this piece became a petite wall cabinet; I love the opportunity to create paintings and then work in the architectural support of woodwork to integrate the piece fully into its surroundings.
"Walnut with White and Peach Blossoms"
11.5" x 7.875" x 3"
Walnut Box with Oil Painting and Linen Interior
This work grew out of a rich mix of violets and earth tones in the initial layers of the painting. This early stage of layered color allowed me to move into creating the bright painted flowers. The building of layered color permitted me to animate my brushwork for the flowers. This interplay between paint layers is something found in many of the floral compositions for this show.
"Warner's Garden"
31.75" x 21.75” x 2"
Oil Paint on Hardboard
Warner in this case is a reference to an extremely fine house painter who I worked with back in the 90’s. He took house painting to an artistic height that I had never witnessed before. He applied so many coats of paint to an ordinary wall with such care and craft that the wall radiated with a spectrum of color. This painting exemplifies that for me. The flowers are inspired by our family walks in the Spring; somehow, amid the pandemic, the flowers and plants were more radiant than ever.
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"What I Am Trying to Say"
18” x 33” x 2"
Oil on Hardboard with Marquetry and Hand Carved Apliques
This multimedia piece is a chronicle of my arts and craft development and history. For the past 35 years plus, I am often working on pieces that can weave my varied skill sets. The challenge is to bring these multiple skill sets together into a cohesive piece that allows the various mediums to complement each other. So that when viewed as a collective piece something whole and new is expressed. This was my ambition with this piece. Ultimately, what I am trying to say is just one half of the communication equation. You, the viewer, is the essential other half.
"White Oak Garden"
11.5" x 8.5" x 3"
White Oak Box with Oil Painting and Linen Interior
This painting is part of a series I did earlier this year. I wanted to create floral compositions that have a density of blooms, branches, and leaves with rich backgrounds. When I realized that the painting would work best with a white oak box to support it, the piece came together and fully into its own.
"Working the Color Wheel with a Monkey Wrench"
25" x 19" x 2"
Oil Paint on Clayboard
This painting grew out of an assemblage of objects that hold sentimental value and are stored in my studio. As the title implies, a key feature of the painting are my color choices. Vitality is a key theme. I think the flowers are particularly helpful in expressing that idea, especially viewed in concert with the painting’s other key objects.
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