The dominant ethos of my art collage days was minimalism, defined as work that set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. And like any earnest student I embraced them fervently. These principals guided me for the first 10 years as young artist, mixed in with a dollop or two of conceptualism, add a drop of Arte Povera, etcetera, etcetera. Well you can see where this is going; a mishmash. But I still love and honor the core of minimalism, the search for the essence of the "thing". While I was preparing for the exhibition last summer, this was the guiding principle in the work; to strip away, lay bare, to reveal somehow the essence of the garden. An impossible task, but thrilling to try. Some of the photos I rejected using for the show as being to bare, to abstract; but now, I am re thinking that idea. I'll call these The Minimal Garden.
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| Tree Peony 11 |
