PASTINE  PROJECTS

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

The idea of “traffic between heaven and earth” has always intrigued me. I see it as a metaphor for our inborn questioning of our place in the cosmos, our need for our existence to have meaning. Every spiritual tradition has grappled with the questions of why we are here, why we have a sense of being more than just our bodies, and the mysterious nature of time. Every spiritual tradition has also invented an iconography to visually express its answers to those eternal questions—from Christian icons to Hindu temples, Buddhist mandalas and Navajo sand paintings. It’s the art of these traditions that has interested me and fed my work.

The paintings in this exhibition are a response to a month in 2022 that I spent at an artist’s residency in Assisi, Italy. Assisi is the birthplace of Saint Francis, and the Basilica di San Francesco, built in his honor, opened its doors in 1253. It’s the site of the great Giotto, Lorenzetti, Martini and Cimabue fresco cycles. During my weeks in Assisi, I walked to the Basilica every day to contemplate those magnificent works.

As an abstract artist, I was drawn to the formal elements of the paintings, looking most deeply at Giotto’s vaulted ceiling frescoes in the Lower Cathedral, and the Pietro Lorenzetti cycle of the Passion of Christ. As the light in the Basilica changed throughout the day, the gold leaf in the frescoes would at times blazeout as shining metal; at other times it shimmered quietly, or even receded to a dull ochre. The grayed greens, blues and violets used to depict the draperies seemed to belong to a different reality altogether, but held their own against the gleaming gold. The big shapes in the frescoes, within which smaller details were held, were easily read, and I continually marveled at the inventiveness of the spatial relationships.

When I eventually came around to focusing on the content of the paintings, I was struck by how many of the narratives depicted a communication between the earthly and heavenly spheres. Angels flew down to earth, prayers wafted towards the heavens, celestial rays bestowed stigmata, and demons were cast into the depths. I couldn’t help but see all this back-and-forth movement as emblematic of our deep-seated longing to place ourselves in the universe.

Having spent much of my life preoccupied with this idea of the traffic between heaven and earth, it seems inevitable that I’ve come to make art that addresses the ineffable. I strive to give visible form to that which cannot be seen.