The House of Dream’s & Flowers – I: Dreams

“The House of Dream’s & Flowers – I: Dreams.”

Oil on unprimed paper.

9 x 12.

2024.

Not long ago I stumbled upon the work of Walter Anderson and the Institution that is dedicated to his career: the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, located in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. I’ve never been but the images that I found online produced so many vivid images in my mind that I had to explore the world that was unraveling in front of me.

I kept thinking of a room covered with the most vivid drawings and paintings of creatures and beings, much like Anderson’s work, of nature unfolding and existing. Where paintings of herons and other animals peel out of the walls and become alive as if the room and its painted inhabitants were gaining a life of their own with every minute that passes.

And then I thought of myself.

Throughout my life I’ve been chased by images that will not let go until I exert my artistic expression and let them emanate from my brush into the substrate. It’s always been a fascinating experience. My mind can hold onto ideas for the longest of time and won’t let go until they gain a body of their own. Until they leave the ether that is my mind and become part of this plane of existence.

So, in a way, this painting is about a metaphysical space. A place where the inception of ideas transpires and materializes. This is a painting about my creative process. About finding possibilities anywhere and letting those ideas take hold until they become spirited and animated.

Maybe these paintings are just the prelude to more animistic thoughts in the forthcoming work as a way to inform the storytelling and the lore behind it.