Chandelier Series

Freed Painting is about liberating paint from the external support surface so it can exist in three-dimensional space.  Slowly, as I evolve and progress with the process, paint is moving away from the wall, projecting itself further and further out into space with series like the Of Heaven and Earth Series and the Levels Series.  Now, with the Chandelier Series, paint cuts all ties with the wall and exists in open space.  The paintings of the Chandelier Series hang from the ceiling and are viewed in the round, 360 degrees of viewing. 

The Chandelier Series combines innovation and beauty to produce paintings that have never existed before.  The acrylic mediums render crystal like effects making the paintings sumptuous visual experiences.  The ability to walk around each painting provides viewers with unprecedented access and opportunity to enjoy paintings in a new way. 

I am reminded of Dale Chihuly’s glass chandeliers that he hung over a number of canals in Venice, Italy.  The combination of brilliance and fragility stood out to me juxtaposed against the ancient architecture of Venice.  My Chandelier paintings are more durable than Chihuly’s glasswork, but they possess the same glimmer and brilliance that dazzles the eye and ignites the imagination.

Chandelier #1

The Freed paintings of the Chandelier Series are like wing suited base jumpers, leaving the confines of the wall to attain greater freedom out in open space.

Chandelier #1 combines transparent gloss medium with transparent crimson and purple hues along with smatterings of orange and green to create a visual symphony of color and light that delights the eyes and sparks the imagination.

Hanging in open space I am reminded of the many crystal chandeliers I have seen in opulent hotels and historic buildings, drawing your eyes upward, commanding attention. Crystal chandeliers are audacious and expressive, asserting themselves on the space they inhabit. My Chandelier paintings possess that same energy. This is Freed painting at the height of its power.

Painting completed 3-15-22

Painting dimensions: H: 56” X W: 24” X D: 24”

Chandelier #2

I can’t believe it has been over a year since I produced my first Chandelier Freed painting.  It was a joy returning to this format.

Chandelier #2 takes full advantage of the “stained glass” effect when light passes through it and the glossy transparent medium used to produce the piece duplicates the crystalline dazzle of glass making for an eye catching work of art.  

I can see this piece hanging in the atrium of an ornate building.  A painting of a whole new kind.  Gracing the open space in which it resides.

Painting completed 8-5-23

Painting dimensions: H: 69″ X W: 25″ X D: 25″

Chandelier #3 Jellyfish

The descriptions for the first two Chandelier Series Freed paintings pretty much sums up what is happening with these paintings.

Please keep in mind that what you are looking at are paintings,  paintings of a kind that have not existed or been seen before.  It takes a new eye, a new mind set to appreciate these works of art.  Just as humanity must shift its mind set to tackle/overcome the local, regional and global challenges facing us, so too a new thought process opens new doors of possibility and liberation. 

Painting completed 9-29-23

Painting dimensions: H: 64” X W: 24” X D: 24”

Chandelier #4

I am excited to present my fourth Chandelier Series Freed painting.  This piece is more free form compared to the previous three paintings in the series.  Also, I went back to an original production method and combined it with my archival method to create a finished piece that will evolve over time.  The painting is constructed of a lattice of reinforced strands with unreinforced strands draped on the structure.  Where there are no contact points, the unreinforced strands will sag, droop and elongate, hopefully reaching the floor and accumulating there.  This process will take about a year to fully manifest itself.  I will post an image of it a year from now, in its mature state.

I have had a couple of gallery owners and directors refer me to artists like Olga de Amaral, Aiko Tezuka, Ko Kirk Yamihara and Faig Ahmed.  This puzzles me because they are all textile artists, and I am a painter.  It seems apparent that the point of my Freed paintings is being missed or not understood at all.   

What you are looking at is Pollock without a canvas and in three dimensions.  Additionally, it is transparent strands tinted with varying color densities and hues.  It is Chihuly, but not in glass, rather. . . Paint.  The same glimmer, radiance, and delicacy without fragility.  No one seems to appreciate what is happening with my Freed paintings.  “Painted string on a bar” is a comment I have heard.  This simplistic assessment lacks vision and imagination.  The reason my Freed paintings are difficult to digest, categorize, pigeonhole is the fact that they never existed before now.  No one thought of such a thing and so no painting examples precedes it.  This is truly new, and people don’t know what to do about it.

The Art World is presently focused on Identity (racial, sexual, gender).  Few appreciate that the discipline of Fine Art Painting is currently having its own identity crisis.  Freed paintings challenge the identity, the definition of what a painting can be.  Freed painting is a departure from traditional “painting” methodology and presentation.  Paint, liberated from the canvas surface, existing in three-dimensional space, asserting its own identity for the first time.  It is a new Identity that no one knows what to make of.

THIS IS A PAINTING!

Freed painting is a new paradigm that expands and enhances the discipline of Fine Art Painting.  Please give it the chance to be seen by the world.  I believe it will change it.

Painting completed 10-14-23

Painting dimensions: H: 62″ X W: 24″ X D: 24″

Chandelier #5

Painting is one of the oldest forms of human expression. For as long as paintings have been made, paint has been a slave to the whim of the painter. That is no longer the case with FREED painting. FREED painting relegates the painter and allows paint the opportunity to express its own identity for the first time.
 
Imagine if you could walk up to a painting and hold a strand of its paint in your hand. Imagine if you could hold a strand of nearly transparent paint and appreciate the subtle tint/hue of blue or green or yellow or purple or red in that individual strand. No longer does one need to imagine these possibilities. This unique access is inherent to every FREED painting. A FREED painting is an unprecedented visual experience. Paint, liberated from the confines of the two-dimensional picture plane, thrust out into space, suspended, almost levitating in the three-dimensional world. Individual strands of paint, each expressing their own unique identity, combining, coalescing, to form groundbreaking paintings.
 
Below is the 5th recently completed installment in my Chandelier Series.
 

Painting completed 4-11-24

Painting dimensions: H: 62” X W: 24” X D: 24”

Chandelier #6 Ghost

Tints of pearlescent red, orange, yellow, green and blue suspended in space combine to produce this ghostly painting, my 6th in my Chandelier Series of FREED paintings.

Painting completed 5-2-24

Painting dimensions: H: 64″ X W: 24″ X D: 24″

Chandelier #7

 
I am pleased to present the seventh FREED painting in my Chandelier Series. This painting highlights the three secondary colors of the color wheel: purple, orange, and green. These colors are produced when combining two primary colors – Example: red mixed with blue gives you purple.
 
The second highlight is the web like forms the three colors take. It is as if Pollock’s drips jettisoned their canvas backing so they can float effortlessly in space.
 
FREED painting considers paint in a way that it has never been considered before. The painter steps back and allows paint to express itself for the first time. By eliminating the external support structure and suspending paint in three-dimensional space, a whole new world opens up for both paint and the viewer of it. The exploration of color density is accessible to the viewer as it never was before. Strands of near transparent quality with hints of color intermingle with strands saturated with color. This interplay is so much more richly appreciable in three-dimensions compared to their two-dimensional cousins. Then there is transparency, a quality unable to be appreciated in two-dimensional format, but when thrust into three-dimensional space is an unprecedented visual experience. To view a strand of transparent paint, to put your hand behind it and see your hand through the strand is an almost spooky experience. It is as if something is there and not there, simultaneously. Looking at a H: 72” X W: 72” painting made exclusively of transparent strands results in a painting that I cannot describe adequately, because I had never seen such a thing until I made them. Include hints of color, bold color, shapes, and you have paintings unlike any other ever produced.
 

Painting completed 5-20-24

Painting dimensions: H: 64” X W: 24” X D: 24”

Chandelier #8 Fuego

Throughout time humans have used paint to express themselves. Paint has been a servant at the whim of the artist. FREED painting looks at paint differently. Instead of being a servant, paint is given the opportunity to express its own identity for the first time. I am pleased to present the eighth FREED painting in my Chandelier Series, another example of looking at something in a different way and by doing so, changing the world.
 
Last night I watched a fantastic and inspiring movie, The Beautiful Game. Here’s the link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5113010/. What I loved about the movie was the absence of an underlying agenda, yet it still had a powerful moral. It was people of varying genders and ethnicities interacting without prejudice, without judgement, with inclusion. A fabulous story for our time.
 
I understand that throughout Western Art History a specific gender/ethnicity has dominated the scene. I appreciate that an injustice has been perpetrated upon artists of the female gender, as well as minority artists and artists of color. I applaud the effort (past twenty years to present) to diversify that scene. I understand that Art is a medium for education and societal transformation. What I take issue with is the extreme focus of the diversification effort. As I see it, an injustice is NOT being made right by the current diversity movement, rather the injustice has been shifted to another specific gender/ethnicity who are not the perpetrators of their father’s sins, but are being held accountable for them, nonetheless.
 
Curators/Directors, those of you who have the power to make or break artist’s careers, I implore you to embrace the moral, the attitude of those in The Beautiful Game. It is time that INCLUSION replaces the (exclusionary) concept of diversity. It is time that Art is exhibited based on merit/talent/innovation and no longer on tenure, ethnicity, or gender. I know there are those who poison our society with their toxic rhetoric and it seems that a polarized response is both right and just, but that is missing the point. An insightful quote that I heard long ago says it best, “Don’t argue with an idiot, onlookers won’t be able to tell the difference”. It’s time to disengage. It is time for each of us as individuals to be the agent of change, to treat others the way we want to be treated, to treat each other with respect and empathy. It is time to look at our world in a different way and by doing so, change that world.
 

Painting completed 5-31-24

Painting dimensions: H: 64″ X W: 24″ X D: 24″

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