they, too, are exercises in scale.


__________

as a personal anodyne for the noisy
ravages of the postmodern spectacle,
i offer these intimate works which give
serious (but also ironic) consideration
to how courage and heroism manifest
inside the natural landscape and history
painting traditions as well as contemporary
studio practice. they emerge, persist,
flourish, and then sometimes completely
fade away. they influence how we see and
understand ourselves and how we make
and value cultural productions bearing
even modest resemblance to the
quotidian familiar—the spaces, places,
and times we all know and occupy.

sometimes pastoral, sometimes not,
these modestly excessive pieces embrace,
distill, and dispel both lurid and principled
impulses while withholding the comforts
and convenience of strong horizon lines
through which we gain and maintain our
bearings, plot our courses, and erect
secure scaffoldings upon which
private meaning and subjective
interpretation may hang.