Derivative: a substance that can be made from another substance.

Sometimes I’m not sure what I’m doing in the studio. No, let me rephrase that: often I’m not sure what I’m doing. Its what keeps me coming back to work in this visual laboratory, the unawareness that eventually makes its self known only through the unfolding of one painting experiment after another. And because this blog is a journal of those studio experiments, I won’t always be able to offer the reader, (or myself), conclusive explanations as to the images I am posting. That being said, my latest studio exploration is “A Bunch of Dumb Bunnies” shown here, (front and back.) When recently asked by another artist why they were cut-outs, I had no answer. Other than the fact that I just happen to like cut-outs, perhaps it has something to do with the genre of still life painting? More than all other genres, artists through the ages who painted still lifes were focused on material, mass and matter. Somehow the stuff that bogs us down, the gravity of life, seems paramount in still life paintings, as opposed to the likeness of a portrait, the story of a historical painting or the space of landscape. Maybe I just wanted to do away with space and atmosphere all together and cut out the matter with its ensuing gravity? To that end, these bunnies have become what I call “derivatives” of their original material identity. They are varnished, acrylic paint on heavy, cut out paper with cardboard easels, resembling plastic toys that are attempting to resemble chocolate Easter bunnies.