111128: Temperature

November 28, 2011 in painting

Morandi's "alternative to modernism corresponds with the temperature of our time because ..

Looming Shadows: Rick Amor

April 11, 2011 in painting

I remember seeing Amor's paintings for the first time at school. Much of his art, especially the urban and seascapes, have a way of arresting you with their silence and mystery; a way of compelling reflection and evoking memories - the blurred and barely discernible ones with little context and those redolent of childlike sensations and wonder.

I dream about my childhood in the same dark tonality of my paintings. The sky is always lowering in to the sea, the beach is deserted and something awful has happened or is about to happen. ~Rick Amor

You enter into Amor's world, his imagination, and it becomes your own for a time. You are left wondering where the long shadows will lead you, what (if anything) the cascades of light will disclose. Aside from being well constructed, his works embody and convey something of the unspeakable in the way great paintings that confront engima have always done - through vision, application and nuance. I see these works and am quietly reminded of the spaces and light in Balthus and Hopper.

It's not what Amor's painting compels me to think, but how it leave me feeling that continues to resonate with me some fifteen years after first seeing them.

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Rick Amor - A Single Mind

New Light and Gesture

September 18, 2010 in events, painting

Regarding Lifted 2010:

A friend and model Kathleen provided the core inspiration for this painting. Kat has a dance background which gives here a striking self-awareness; her sensitivity to space, movement and stillness all contributed to the atmosphere and tone of this work.

A few smaller studies were completed first (uncharacteristic of my working method) and then I just laid the paint on, with a few shifts throughout to register and respond to gestures I have come to know over time.