UNBOUND: EKSTASIS
In the Hellenic tradition, Ekstasis — ἔκστασις — means standing outside oneself. A departure from a fixed state. These paintings were made from exactly that impulse: the need to step outside what had become too confining to bear and move toward something freer.
These are large works, some body-scale, made slowly and with great effort. The traced body appears in several of them — a direct physical presence on the canvas. The energy in these paintings is real and came from somewhere real. Dark in places. Always reaching upward.
A poem written during this period guided the work:
Wind blows through me. Bright light finds the empty spot in my mind.
The trajectory of this series — from darkness toward light, from constraint toward release — points directly toward everything that followed. These paintings were necessary. They cleared the ground.
In the Hellenic tradition, Ekstasis — ἔκστασις — means standing outside oneself. A departure from a fixed state. These paintings were made from exactly that impulse: the need to step outside what had become too confining to bear and move toward something freer.
These are large works, some body-scale, made slowly and with great effort. The traced body appears in several of them — a direct physical presence on the canvas. The energy in these paintings is real and came from somewhere real. Dark in places. Always reaching upward.
A poem written during this period guided the work:
Wind blows through me. Bright light finds the empty spot in my mind.
The trajectory of this series — from darkness toward light, from constraint toward release — points directly toward everything that followed. These paintings were necessary. They cleared the ground.
Unbound, 2019, oil on canvas, 48 x 39 "
