Paintings - A Sample

This page will  change from time to time. For now I will illustrate some of my earlier paintings and then show a sample of my more recent works. This page is under construction and as I prepare more images, I will include them.

My training at the Boston Museum School was primarily in painting and drawing. I have continued to develop my painting since then, and the work serves as my artistic base.  Much of this work has involved a combination of watercolor and ink on acid free paper.  I am also painting  with acrylics on linen canvas having started in oils. 

As a way of introducing my work, I have included two early paintings that were done in oils on linen. The painting above is "The Six of Spades", 20" H x 24" W.  To the right is another oil on linen done a little later, "Futility", 20" H  x 24" W

Currently, my two-dimensional paintings arebuilt  on multiple layers of meaning and have a conceptual component. Theyoften depict landscape-based, realistic images through anoverlay of a language-based conceptual network. I am currently working on a series of acrylic-on-linen canvas paintings, which I will add here when they are finished.  For now I have included some of my watercolor and ink paintings. All are on acid free paper.

 In the three paintings illustrated below, these networks are words serving both as parts of the visual structures as well as meaningful statements.  These language-based statements provide an interface between  our inner selves and the external reality.  However, in using this interface, the viewer shifts back and forth between a purely visual mode of understanding and a  language based way of understanding.  These two ways of knowing are thus brought together and complement each  other as the inner world  of the viewer interacts with the external reality. To the left is "What Is"  18" (H) x 24" (W) and to the right is   "Broken How" 20" (H) x 24" (W).  Below is  "Broken When" 20"(H) x 24" (W).

In the three paintings shown here, the language elements are short titles or comments or questions  addressing the relationships between our inner experience and the chaotic environment in which we construct order and meaning.  In this way they complement the visual experience, but require some  alternation in cognitive understanding between the visual and the language elements. 

I have developed another goup of works on paper, on which I have hand written phrases or free form verse. Most of these comments were made while I was working on the piece and represent my thoughts as the painting developed. Because the writing is too small to be read in the size of the reproductions presented here, I have placed the wrttten text opposite each work below. The title and size of each are below each work.

Beneath

the surface of

appearances in the

mesh of the organic

and nonorganic

matrix of matter

To what end?

The end all and

be all of

all things.

"Beneath Appearances" 20"x24"

Crowded limbs of apple

form networks for seeing

valley farms and grasses

scattered to horizon yet

unseen of neworks

in the mountain scenes

where visions poured

from hollows and

apple's branches made

the frame for the

experience

"Crowded Limbs" 20"x 24"

A flying moving branch with networks

of leaves and twigs through which we

see the void that is reality.

The mountains move above the lake and

weigh upon the water in the lake

to form a bowl for fish and in the

interaction, compress the breathing

earth which moves over living soul.

"Branch" 20" x 24"

Thank you for looking.  If you have comments, please feel free to contact me at george.shortess@lehigh.edu