New Work on canvas - and quote from Henry Miller

Side by side with the human race there runs another race of being, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song.  Out of the dead compost and the inert slag they breed a song that contaminates. I see this other race of individuals ransacking the universe, turning everything upside down, their feet always moving in blood and tears, their hand always empty, always clutching and grasping for the beyond, for the god out of reach: slaying everything within reach in order to quiet the monster that gnaws at their vitals.  I see that when they bellow like crazed beasts and gore, I see that this is right, that there is no other path to pursue.  A man who belongs to this race must stand up on the high place with gibberish in his mouth and rip out his entrails.  It is right and just, because he must!  And anything that falls short of this frightening spectacle, anything less shuddering, less terrifying, less mad, less intoxicated, less contaminating, is not art.  The rest is counterfeit.  The rest is human. The rest belongs to life and lifelessness.

- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Couple at Play

I have provided a couple of details in order to give a greater understanding of how I constructed the piece. Hope you enjoy.

Do crazy times equal tame paintings?

I am constantly hearing about the concept of a contemporary painting. In a postmodern world, does such a thing exist? A sound approach to painting in today's world would be to have a greater understanding of history. De Kooning built of off Picasso (Broke through with excavation), Rembrandt, Rueben, Gorky and who knows whom else. Name a great painter who did not take this approach. Even the conceptual demigod Duchamp finished his life with the creation of a modeled object. As creative people, I feel it would do the world a great justice to build off of the four corners of the world that have created paintings and sculptures for at least the last twenty thousand years. People let’s start pushing the image.

What do you think??

I just wanted to introduce one of my new larger scale paintings. I hope you enjoy.

The importance of material

Today’s painter has a wide variety of materials to work with that make pigment look and feel differently than it has in the past. It is my assumption, that the use of such material is essential in the formation of a contemporary painting. By experimenting with new materials (much like the impressionists of the late 19th century), one might think of formal characteristics of the past in order to have greater opportunity for invention. I feel that it is this type of visual invention is essential for the potency of an image.

Can you believe Bacon was not included in the resent publication of Art Since 1900

I find it amazing that Francis bacons work has been overlooked by some of todays most respected art critics. What were they thinking. The image shown can be viewed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Just in case you are interested in viewing a really mind blowing painting.

Thank you Leon

The image above is a work by leon Golub. One of Chicago's original members of the "Monster Roster". I feel his work to be a real visual treat, and thought I would post "Parturition" 1955.
In order to give any possible viewer an idea of were my visual aesthetic is coming from.