Pieces

The thirty flower paintings arranged in a grid are from a series entitled Color Field. Created over a period of five years from 2018-2023, Color Field includes over 130 uniformly scaled paintings of everything that blooms within the boundaries of the garden surrounding my studio/home - flowers, weeds, vegetables, fruit trees, succulents, etc. Whether large or small, widely popular or undervalued, native or imported, toxic or edible, invasive or endangered, ornamental or weed, each was given an equal platform, a reference to the importance of conservation but also as metaphor for equal rights in a social context. Color Field refers to the visible color range in nature and the paintings are ordered by hue and exhibited as one continuous spectrum. The garden is an artificial ecosystem that is a microcosm of the world, in that six of the seven continents are represented in terms of the plants/trees’ native origins - North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, China, Middle East, and Australia.As the project developed, I researched each flower’s botanical history, cultivation, and natural habitat. Some of the flowers have ancient origins with fossilized specimens dating back 80 million years. Others are hybrids from as recent as the 1970’s. Several species are edible and frequently used in teas, soups, salads, bread, and flavorings. However, numerous plants are quite toxic and sometimes deliberately ingested to induce harmful and/or hallucinatory effects. Many have commercial value in dyes, perfumes, and lotions. Various plants have antibiotic properties and have been used for medicinal purposes and folk remedies to treat a wide range of physical ailments.Some are considered noxious weeds and invasive when they have been introduced outside their natural habitat. Only a few plants are protected in their natural habitat. The two large multi-paneled paintings are from a series entitled Natural Selection. Natural Selection again references flowers from our garden. Each painting is arranged in a grid of sixteen square panels with each panel depicting a detail of a different flower and collectively forming a futuristic hybrid of a single flower.The process of natural selection today is playing a much smaller role in relationship to unconscious or simulated determinants forming the intricacies of a plant or human’s genotype. Individuals in a population are naturally variable, but Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” for better or worse is more questionable with the vast and unknown possibilities of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.The paintings are not meant to be ominous, rather a reaffirmation of my continued sense of wonder in the unending variations in nature’s patterns, colors, and shapes. A further objective is to thereby reinforce the significance of protecting every aspect of nature’s intricacies as accelerated erosion of the diversity of plant and animal life threatens the future health and survival of our planet. As time passes, I have an even greater sense of urgency in valuing every precious moment, knowing I am just a blip in Earth’s lifetime radar.