Playing in the Grass, 2022

oil on panel
8”x 8” (21cm x 21cm)

Playing in the Grass showcases one curious visual effect that comes from abstracting stuffed animals to remove their form and focus purely on their texture. The square field of impasto brushwork, rendered in a luscious green color, can easily be read as tufts of fur surrounding a teddy bear face but it can just as easily become anything else that the viewer allows their imagination to make it… maybe it is a fluffy heap of shimmery leaves in which a playful stuffed animal is hiding, or perhaps the teddy bear sank into a sun-lit patch of dense foliage and is smiling up at the sky above him.

By titling the piece Playing in the Grass, I hope to invite your creative interpretations into your experience of the piece. That creative interpretation will inevitably lead to spending more time examining and taking in the painting… and the more time you spend with it, the more you will notice and appreciate the beauty of the pigment and the lively variability of each individual brushstroke.