Plane Painting is an investigation of the 2-dimensional surface and space using the vocabulary of planes. The forms echo their support and travel the surface creating shallow and deep space. Their activity explores the 2-dimensional environment alternating open and densely described areas. The tension on the surface is tight only to be broken suddenly by the quiet of the open canvas.

The paintings are largely monochromatic with only mild expressions of color. This allows for a more focused research of the formal relationships.

What has brought me to this plane painting?
My April 2004 show explored opening the canvas from behind; creating deep space and then binding it on the surface with matrices of lines. Tension was caught between the atmospheric space behind and the tight linear structure riding on the surface. My search in plane painting releases the surface from the support through the interaction of multiple planes.

At what point does a line become a plane?
And can a plane express the same movement as a "line that takes a walk"?
Instead of opening the canvas from behind, the canvas metaphorically erupts and breaks away from itself through the movement of planes.
Whereas the linear structure asserted flatness and 2-dimensionality before, the 2-dimensional environment is identified where planes become thin, transparent or broken, and where only flat, open canvas remains.

As with almost all art explorations, precedents will be noticed and recognized. Some of these references were intentional, others happened. I have worked the acrylics with water to lighten the information on the canvas. I have intended to create fresco-like remains and residual marks. This is a reaction to the heavy expression of color and paint in my recent paintings. My work shifts from building the surface up to working close to the canvas and baring its identity. Plane painting seeks to excite and to quiet, to activate and to still, to break and to ground.

April 2005