The symmetry was so important, and it had to be exact for the painting to work. Throughout the process, I was fearful that if something was off, I wouldn’t be able to see it. It was difficult to see if the symmetry was exact because the panels weren’t right next to each other. The longest uninterrupted wall in my San Francisco studio was 17 feet long, so we had to set the painting up a corner configuration, with one half of it in my large easel and the other half rigged up to two smaller easels. Q: What new challenges did you face in the mechanics of creating a painting at this scale and how have those new techniques been incorporated in your studio practice?Ī: The painting is over 28 feet long. I wanted to create a kind of cosmic logic one that felt right, with all of the contrasting formal elements coexisting within the plane of the painting. My natural tendency is to contrast competing elements in order to facilitate different ways of looking-different visual experiences- and to try to resolve those disparate elements into a visual field that holds space in a particular way. The white elements are glyph-like they relate to letterforms, and they are like a fragmented screen to look through-a broken plane, on the surface.

They have a sgraffito quality they are very precise and, from a distance, look like colorful scratches on the surface. They lend a sense of gravity, even though they are small and confetti-like. The small shapes are moving in all directions, yet overall, they have a downward motion. How do these different elements relate and function?Ī: The large shapes provide a structure as well as a sense of motion. Q: In this composition, there is a stark contrast between the large sweeping elements in the background, followed by a layering of much smaller more erratic looking elements and then finally the encaustic white elements floating on the surface. And, it’s also a reference to dawn and dusk, to time and to a lifecycle. I wanted to keep that motion flowing through the two halves, almost like a circuit moving through the entire painting. It's a compositional element that creates a circular path for your eyes to travel. I hope that people look at this painting and think of duality and separation within the whole, as well as the complexity of natural systems of organization.Įverything in the two halves of the painting is as absolutely symmetrical as it possibly can be, except for the background gradient. We are naturally predisposed to respond to bilateral symmetry. Now I look at this painting and see a reference to the symmetry of the lungs, and to the physical reality of existing in a bilateral physical form. I don't think I had any awareness of this whatsoever, but the image of the bilateral clot in her lungs must have trickled into my thinking about a symmetrical composition.

What inspired this overall duality as well as this single inconsistency?Ī: When I started conceptualizing the painting my wife, Allison, had just had a pulmonary embolism. Q: Parts I & II of this painting appear to be mirror images of each other except for the gradient backgrounds that are flipped top to bottom.

I don't recommend it for my blood pressure, but I value it for my psyche. I always love to challenge myself, but this was far beyond that. Although I like to tell myself I am in control, I know that the illusion of control is not the best thing for an artist and that stretching and expanding is very fruitful and productive. I think more than anything I look back on that experience like, “Wow, that was one wild ride,”-technically, logistically, emotionally, and physically-for me. I started by thinking, “This is a chance to show what I can do,” to really be ambitious and spread my wings a little bit. I look back on it and just remember feeling complete and utter panic for nine months. Now that the dust has settled, what stands out to you about this painting?Ī: What stands out more than anything is that the whole ICA exhibition was a major stretch in terms of conception and production. Q: This painting was incredibly ambitious in both its scale and complexity and creating it must have felt like an ultra-marathon of sorts.

Symmetry in art museum