Square Prints

Print #1

Print #2

Print #3
Print #4

Print #5

drypoint, chine colle

In these prints, the square is a form and a void in space. It is organic, like the irregular weave of something handwoven, a plane not usually parallel to the picture plane. It has varying degrees of density from image to image. In the first print, the butterfly is entering or exiting the dark square while in the second butterfly print, the butterfly inhabits it. Which world is unknowable, the dark or the light?

Colored prints number three and four are landscapes, atmospheric, and created out of color. Number three is constructed out of slabs of paper giving the sense of monumental scale of Stonehenge and just as bucolic. The fourth print is all about sky and reflections; a white square fades in and out of focus. Its subtle and peaceful qualities are in the vein of Agnes Martin, revered for her simplicity and achievement of sensations of tranquility. She is one painter who knew that less is sometimes more.

Print number five is like Daffodils, Loss, but without the flowers. It is stark but soft, full of contradictions. When I was a teenager, I painted a mural in my bedroom of a split face, one side in color and the other in black/white/grays with the word "paradox" painted above it. It was pretty much the theater comedy and tragedy masks rolled into one. Something of the theme remains in my work despite having left adolescence behind long ago, LONG ago. I would never have been able to make these prints as a teenager. It is not a technical issue but a conceptual one. My work hinges on the idea in combination with materials, process, touch, and perception. There is change, but there is also a strong, yet flexible philosophical undercurrent buoying it all along.

Washington Art Association

16" x 16", oil on canvas, 2006


Butterfly Pelvis/Wild Indigo Dusty Wing


I am having a show at the Washington Art Association in Washington Depot, CT, from June 23-July 22, 2007. The opening reception is Saturday, June 23rd from 4-6pm. The gallery's website is http://www.washingtonart.org/ I expect to hang between fifteen and twenty paintings as well as a few prints. The art association has three galleries and there will be one artist for each space. The other two artists I am showing with are the painter, Kathy Black, and the sculptor, Bob Rivera. The image above will be included in the show and is featured on the announcement. It is rather like Georgia O'Keefe both in symbolism, scale, and paint handling. The pelvis is symbolic of birth as well as death (bone) and the butterfly of life cycles and renewal. The forms fit together in a dynamic way and it was important to me that one did not dominate over the other.
The tension between the green and purple echos the sharp contrast of black and white in the picture.

Ring, Green

oil on panel, 24" x 24"

I am enjoying taking a break from narrative, although the narrative isn't totally gone, just distilled. A gold ring in the center square is like those used in some of my other paintings (see Mass Grave, and Lunar Moth Self-Portrait). I like the contrast between the formal rigidity of the square and the loose, atmospheric brushwork. The inside square is not truly "square", however. It coexists with the surrounding space, push-pull dynamic like a house being weathered by nature while simultaneously using resources to maintain itself. The golden ring is not a perfect ellipse, looking as though it has had a few hard knocks. It retains its structural integrity and is not eclipsed by the shadows of the void it inhabits. The black square and ring make a painting within a painting.

I am in the process of pursuing this idea of the square, the void, and filling it. I think of Jasper Johns' Target with Four Faces from 1955 and his lithograph, Target from 1960. I am also obsessed with packing my son's lunch in the bento box style lunchbox used by the lady at the Vegan Lunch Box blog: http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/ ! I am sure no serious artist would ever admit this; besides, how many serious artists are moms who would actually take pleasure in the mundane drudgery of packing lunch? This activity of filling squares with precious things also reminds me of the rituals of saving locks from the first haircut, placing photographs in albums, organizing collectibles like stamps, as well as jewelry in boxes. The paintings also remind me of washing window panes (stroking the surface of the window while seeing the yard through it), as well as the more recent and less pastoral association of the computer screen and Windows programs.

With all the activity of film, video, digital media, something still like a painting can be refreshing. It can also be perplexing, as the viewer is being led in a different way than other media. While I am hopeful that viewers can get something out of my work, it bothers me less that my audience is small. We don't always catch every sunrise, glimpse every bird, or marvel at each other. Spiritual experiences can't be forced in nature or art. Being constantly engaged would be exhausting as well as impossible, ask anyone who has ever made the mistake of trying to see an entire art museum in a day. My work is available to be experienced, but it will most often go unseen, perhaps even by people who are looking directly at it.

Swordtails and Boxes

line etching, 4" x 3" image size

In addition to squares, I have been thinking about boxes. The squares in my work are rarely completely two-dimensional, since they have spatial references.

This image comes from a painting in an earlier post, Butterfly Box. With the figure removed, the subject is the relationship of the butterfly, something wild and free, and the box, a container. I turned the etching plate up-side-down and printed it a second time, inverted, further amplifying this duality through the mirroring asymmetry. It didn't look right printed in one pass. The overlaying forms are transparent enough to maintain their separate identities but to also fuse into one form, suggestive of fluttering. The butterfly has a geometric structure like the box even though its movement is unpredictable compared with the box's stasis. Turning the box on its head makes it airborne like the butterfly and further complicates this relationship.

To me, the image is metaphoric of the balance between responsibility and freedom in politics, ecology, and personal daily life.

Swordtail Butterflies



This one is for the Butterfly Book.

A response regarding Rob Moore

A painting by Rob Moore:
Untitled, 9.75" x 17", oil on masonite, 1984

Nicole,


Thanks for your writing about Rob Moore. I was a student of his at Mass Art from 1974 - 1978. he was the most influential instructor of my life. Being from New England and not used to southern accents, i will alway remember him in front of the class that first day when he was discussing \"Form in Spice\".


Other than a reference to \"The Package Deal\" poster (from his work with the Graphic Workshop) being in the collection at the Smithsonian American Art museum (http://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artworks1.cfm?StartRow=1&ConID=7337&format=short) - a poster that I do have a copy of and helped print - and the website you mentioned there is little on him. I\'d love to see a website with images of his work.


Thanks! Rick