Corridor I

Corridor I was the product of the lessons I learned by creating what I would later title Study for Corridor I. Another artist I know was assembling a show in a tiny gallery at the Institute, and I wanted to have a painting of some ambition to throw down since I so rarely get the chance to exhibit.
When I created Study, the image of the yawning mouth appealed to me. I wanted to base the work around it in a more fundamental way than I did in Study, in which I attached the mouth form to an existing figure drawing. In Corridor, I wanted the mouth to be a competing entity as well as an element of the figure. Most people I talk to about my paintings refer to the action of the mouth as 'screaming,' but the effect I was attempting was that of yawning, growing wider and deeper and slowly forcing the figure apart and aside. The little bending games I played with the teeth were supposed to be a vehicle for that intent, but I think I got too caught up in the profound blackness of form that I was attempting when I should have been pushing motion harder with riskier, more dramatic gesture. I am becoming more meticulous in my brushwork, and I sometime fear that I will lose the willingness to take those kinds of risks as the work becomes more precious from longer effort. I must remind myself to be reckless.

This painting hangs in the stairwell of my home in such lighting and positioning that it gives the very strong impression of a person standing on the stairs when viewed out of the corner of the eye. It startles people from time to time and makes me happy.