The Human Condition

March 4, 2008

As an artist I will always remain a student, a child, in the sense that I will always be experiencing new sensations and learning new things. With each new idea brought to a surface and every new revelation about medium I feel a sudden rush of excitement. I will always be amazed by perception and its differences from reality. I will always be astonished by the single brush stroke that can define an entire plane perfectly. I will always be surprised by the emotion that can be changed so easily with even the smallest change in color. I will always be a student seeking knowledge and striving for perfection. A perfection that cannot be graded on a curve or defined by a selling price, but a perfection that can define a lifetime of learning in one bold statement or stroke or even one single thought.
As a human I am an emotional and political being. I live in a world where everything came from something and experience has meaning. I understand that everything we do and see every day is influenced by the human condition and the thoughts and ideologies of others. I paint the human figure because we are after all a part of the landscape. We have inserted ourselves into the world in such a dramatic way that we cannot extract the human condition from the environment any more than we can split an atom without destroying it. I look at the subjects of my paintings as figurines stuck in the imagination of a higher thought process, a toy for others to mold and pose, a single element in a much larger composition that is ever changing according to the whims of an outside source. As I create I am also created. As I speak I am also spoken to. As I scream I am also silenced.
The artist in me will always seek to better my craft, while my humanity will always seek out the soul of the work that I am doing. If craft, the overall outcome of the artistic process, is the skin of a piece of artwork, the part we see first and judge, the soul must be intention, our rationale and purpose behind the creation. Sometimes I am left without the ability or knowledge to realize my idea in the material, while other times I find myself stuck in a process without direction. In both situations I am lost in a routine with no hope of finding an outcome. Because of this dilemma I am constantly searching for a path that will combine the skin of my work with its soul to form a complete figure, a painting that can describe itself without words, but through its mere presence.
Art, as everything else that we do, should say something. Art should have meaning even if no one else understands. Art should scream louder than the drumbeat of society even is no one is listening. As an artist I am simply trying to speak and understand, as a human I am simply trying to cope and influence. As a student I am hoping to achieve a state where I am able to pass on all that I have learned.