Story
"Always, I am made speechless by the rhythm of a herd of bison in motion. It is all at once random and choreographed, an ensemble of players moving together to a silent drum – or perhaps, a drum an outsider cannot hear."
Always, I am made speechless by the rhythm of a herd of bison in motion. It is all at once random and choreographed, an ensemble of players moving together to a silent drum – or perhaps, a drum an outsider cannot hear.
I wanted to capture the simultaneous unpredictability and uniformity of this natural pattern. After much experimentation, not quite able to find one perfect media to depict them, I decided the most apt way would be to integrate several of my favorite techniques into a single work.
I keep an enormous collection of vintage books at my studio, most wrapped in book cloth covers circa the late 1800s and early 1900s. From a selection of these, I removed the covers and cut them to (nearly) uniform size before treating each with its own dash of paint and collage, using antique stamps, handwritten letters and other paper treasures collected over decades. These textures form the textured background that becomes the landscape throughout the piece.
Next, using a variety of my hand-drawn images, I screen-printed a bison in ink on each book cover before laying in cool blues and warm chocolate tones in acrylic paint. Finally, I applied the topmost silk screen layer to each bison to add shadow and contour, creating a herd of distinct individuals.
Like many of my original works, As Far As The Eye Can See is mounted on wood panel treated with vintage piano sheet music and a layer of white wash. The music pokes through, an homage to the underscoring of music that runs through our lives.
