Koan Series

A Koan is a paradoxical anecdote or riddle used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and facilitate awakening of consciousness.

Circa 1988 I began a Series of drawings called the Sidewalk Series.  I was fascinated by the cracks and lines and curves in the sidewalks and roadways of the city.  I was enamored with the abstract shapes and forms that I saw in them.  At the same time, I was exploring Thiebaud’s street scenes and Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park Series.  This was the foundation for the Koan Series that began formally in January 2000 as a collection of small, intimate drawings.  It stayed that way for many years.  There were a number of unsuccessful attempts to go larger, but it was not until recently that I gained comfort working on a larger scale.

The earlier drawings in the Series were meant to look unfinished or “in process” and though they look far more controlled when compared to current work, an intuitive sense has always been present.  There are people who find liberation through order and there are others who find it in chaos.  I am the former who thankfully has found a way to bridge both worlds.  I build my works on paper in a deliberate way that satisfies my need for control while producing work that allows me to express myself.  By working in layers, I essentially create and destroy, hide and reveal what I want to be seen or obscured.  All the work begs the question, “Why did the artist do that or stop there”?  That is the riddle.  That is the stimulus that (hopefully) encourages viewers to look at the work differently, in a broader, more open way, free of preconceptions.

Of the “question” words: (who, what, when, where, why and how), I find “why” to be the most confounding because all too often the answers are unsatisfying and lead to more questions than answers.  This aspect of “why” is an elementary principal inherent to all the Koan Series works on paper and should never be too far from viewers minds when considering these works.

From its inception in 2000 I have seen the work in the Series evolve dramatically.  What began with controlled line drawings eventually loosened up and became more expressive.  Recently the Series has exploded into scribbles and mark making and symbol rendering amidst loose application of varying mediums.  Jungian psychological themes of archetypes and the collective unconsciousness along with Rudolph Steiner’s thoughts on Intuition are asserting themselves and the artistic influences of the past are evolving as well.  In the shadows are Twombly, Tanguy and Turner.  My first large format pieces include an alphabet that I contrived and hand prints are finding their way into the work along with other symbology.  It is all meant to set a stage.  Each Koan presents elements that hint at a direction and it is up to the viewer to take it from there and create the adventure.  That is what art should be about, facilitating an adventure, facilitating an awakening of consciousness.