Rumination's 2012

To ruminate is to think, brew, chew, contemplate, muse, ponder, reflect, meditate. That is what I hope my paintings invoke. I would like my work to create a thought provoking dialogue between it and the viewer.

So, it was a happy accident when this series evolved into a graphic representation of “ruminations” or thoughts. I began this series with layers of paint, pastels, found materials, and the human figure. Then I began washing them with shades of white. This diluted the clarity and gave the elongated figures a quiet, pensive prescence. What developed was that they, along with the under-layers, still came through. The colors were not as prominent but they were still there. Much like our thoughts, they are often just underneath the surface. Others may not “see” everything we think, but the person and our “under-layers still come through”. So in essence, we are what we think. “As a man thinketh so is he”.

---