Points of transition - Oil on canvas - 30" x 45" - 2011
Working from the premise that art in every epoch, has been among the first to bring our attention the shifts that have already occurred in our paradigms of being and knowing, then to do so, painting needs to either embody that change, or exclude it, so to bring it to our attention. Of necessity then, every generation in doing so, will renew arts relations with its contemporary society. It might feel like reinventing art, but it is simply practicing art. Keeping pace with the paradigm shifts that have already unconsciously taken place.
Portraiture in our epoch, comes to us in a multitude of media, and these have shifted our paradigms of expectations yet again. Our imagery of today is illustrative,essentially highlighting turning and tipping points. Moments of celebrity, historically significant and moments of crucial import. These moments have come to define our paradigms of portraiture : the celebratory- that which is worth being told- our news. And yet, yet our lives are filled with moments of transition. Moments that succeed each other, where the outcome is yet to be decided. Where one may still pass or be passed, where victory or defeat await equally, where the race is just a race, where the athletes are firstly striving athletes. Where all is in equilibrium, paused in a moment of delayed synchronization, where gravity holds the centripetal forces in a tango embrace, where everything still remains possible, still to be determined. Where life will succeed life. To this end, excluding those tipping and turning points which we have now come to believe as the norm, to celebrate the quotidian of moments that lead but to another moment, is to bring portraiture to turn its attention once more to life itself, as we actually live it, and not simply as we hear of it.
That truly is moment enough.
(The juxtaposition that interests me here is that the former corporate media gave us a paradigm of imagery selected upon turning and tipping points. The ascending media of the digital cloud will initially assume the same paradigm, and then its different aspects of durations and moments will leak in, changing our paradigm of what the measure of a valued image shall be....the times they are a changin' if not already blown in the wind : its that shift, from where to where that intrigues me here)
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