It Laid Waste

It Laid Waste; 50 x 36"; acrylic, charcoal and gold leaf on paper

  The small charcoal landscapes gave way to an analogous series of larger format drawings.  There is often this push and pull in the studio.  I work small to meditate, explore a new idea, and take the pressure off of the process giving it time to develop.  But eventually these intimate explorations breed a desire to spring forward to fill larger pages and to draw in a way which is more physical using my entire body, creating richer surfaces, and infusing the entire process with more energy than the smaller format permits.
  When I opened up the size of this series, I found this blue, dome-shaped, form in the sky.  Reminiscent of the Scrovegni chapel in Italy. The blue is rich and magnetic; and the dome shape connects these pieces to other works from around the Renaissance period, in particular I am thinking of Les Très Riches Heures.