This painting began with a photograph I came across that caught my attention. He looked like someone who had already decided something before the rest of us caught up. I could not tell you who he was, though I suspected he was not from around here. He seemed to be moving a step ahead of the rest of us.
The figure was older, with an unmistakable energy in the way he carried himself. Something active beneath the surface. Maybe a little out on the surface too.
What stayed with me was the sense of thought in motion.
In building the image, I leaned into that movement. The planes do not resolve into a single, fixed version of the face. They hold multiple moments at once, with edges carried forward and forms slightly unsettled.
It remains a portrait, but not a static one.
What I appreciated was the contrast. Age on the surface, momentum underneath.
—
On view in SUSPENDED Award Alcove, Artel Gallery Pensacola, Florida
