goinggrey

Staying alive. Kicking butt and tired as hell.Artist Statement Draft OneI first began painting and mixed media as a sort "emergency release valve" in a difficult period in my life. It served its initial purpose in keeping me relatively sane and alive. However, as I have become more and more enamored with the practice of fine arts I have also realized the position my discipline of choice now occupies in the modern world. In a digital age, painting has become something of an antiquity. It is my intention to do what I can through open-ended story telling to show that this great medium and its potential are as valuable now as they ever were in its illustrious history.Painting for me proceeds much like a long and often confused conversation in a room full of people. Sometimes, it's just me and one character or person in the room having a chat. At other times everyone in the room joins the yammering in unison. This is how I see and approach the creative process. I do not force my will upon the work no more than I would a stranger or group of people at a café. I do of course have the right to add to the conversation (sometimes having to yell over the allegorical crowd to make my voice heard) and in so doing I am able to keep order in the work. There are several themes which I follow from painting to painting. Most notably of which is the need for abstract characters often set in a landscape or cityscape. I often juxtapose heavy textures alongside soft glazes. Abstract blocks and circles denote space within the flat planes and strong horizon lines that I tend to gravitate towards. This aggregate of features allows the painting to work as a whole chorus rather than a jumbled conversation and provides a foothold for the eye of the viewer to follow. As far as the story in the painting itself is concerned, I believe it is not my responsibility to tell the moral or conclusion. The viewer should be able to find some meaning in a piece as it relates to them and in any picture there are an infinite amount of possible culminations.I am currently working with an ongoing series of oil paintings entitled "A Chance Encounter" as well as several new mixed media projects which read in a much more frenetic manner than the oil paintings. In so doing I am working to expand my catalog in preparation for upcoming domestic and international exhibits. Thematically I plan to continue my narratives of often bleak and bizarre rendezvous' in desolate, expansive backdrops which I hope will be as colorful and luminescent as the oils themselves. Philosophically I plan to continue with my mission to help keep oil painting at the center of the fine arts world in a time when pixels seem to capture more attention than pigments.Christopher M. ColvinBrooklyn, New York 2007