"Spaced Miners-Space Paintings"
"Anyone who has ever been to
We would sometimes drive up the
I would be surprised if anyone, even the dullest and most unimaginative amongst up would fail to make the "alien world" connection. The massive red walls, the vastness of the panorama fairly beg to be rendered as paintings. When I do my paintings, I really get into the geology and the detail this latter bit is kind of counter-intuitive. Most artists paint these areas loosely with a paucity of detail focusing on the gross structures instead. I can well understand that approach. There is a mind numbing amount of detail to be seen in any given view. However, (this is the counter-intuitive part), I have discovered that by doing my oil paintings in excruciating detail what happens is that the illusion of space is created! With all this detail, it is possible to go into the paintings and explore the space of any given area. With the looser styles one is stopped at the surface of the painting-no real sense of space. When you create space via detail like this it also creates a sense of magic. This works in my more traditional landscapes as well as with my "Space Paintings" wherein I let it all hang out and have geologic structures floating asteroid-like, in space. In all my Space Paintings you can find a plume of what most think is smoke but is actually the dust from our drill-rig. I had some fun with this putting the rig in some very unlikely places.
Let's face it, artists are strange—alien
strange. I should know."
Quite a journey, that."
"Space Paintings" created (1996-97)