New Work: Saccade XII, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches

Saccade XII, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches $10950 framed
Saks Galleries, Denver, CO

It's good to have a number of paintings going in the studio to work with. In this 12th Saccade, a very textural painting developed because I worked over another oil from 4-5 years ago. The heavy impasto that resulted took me back to those Monet works. It was a joy to create a forest with all of that ready-made texture.

The purpose of the Saccades is to create a painting without a singular point of interest. Doing so presents a number of problems, first being that all the areas on the canvas are equally interesting. This is a good practice for most paintings anyway, so this oil puts that idea to task.

There is the additional game in play here and that is depth. The viewer gets the impression of being in the darker part of the forest looking out. The light is there, but nothing much is revealed. 

There is a considerable forest pattern effect across the 4 x 5 foot space. It has an abundance of complexity and just enough depth to be an intriguing presence on the wall.

About the Saccades Series shown here:
"Since the late 19th century, researchers have been aware of the phenomenon of saccades, the rapid movement of the eye as we shift our attention from one thing to another. As a result, vision itself is discontinuous. We construct a “map of reality” from saccades much as a film editor puts together a scene from individual camera takes." From an article by the film maker Errol Morris, NY Times