Beyond the Sea

While staying on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea in southern Spain, I experienced a night of natural violence – a massive electrical storm that went on for several hours and felt like the end of the world. As it dissipated it provoked a breathless swelling twitching quiescence – a kind of post orgasmic conciliation between sky and Sea. This was the focus of the prints seen here.

I heard a piece of dialogue in a film which touched both the concerns of this work and much contained in my larger paintings:

“I can understand the violence of a storm, it’s a natural thing not meant to harm anyone. But not the violence of men, their cruelty and savageness to one another and to themselves.”  

The series of silk screen prints I produced from my paintings done during the storm employ a very fluid use of line – referencing Japanese prints or Chinese calligraphy. They can be viewed as a finely distilled essence of my larger visceral works. A friend used a musical metaphor when comparing them to one of my paintings called Moments, saying that if Moments was a cacophony of sounds of the Schoenberg variety then these prints are like extracting a single note from its fabric and hearing it develop in the air.