Three Images of a Nude Man

Three Images of a Nude Man. I was going to alumni life drawing sessions at VCU. Not that I was an alumni, but who cares. At the time, models were hard to come by... 2002.

Working within the context of a decomposition of form by notating fundamental geometric relationships, I drew three black and white sketches of the same male model in three different poses.
The rectangles should be enough to let you know that the model was male.

The People

The People. Inspired by a poem of the same name, by an author whose name is no longer with me. This painting was the first of my synthetic pixelization series and depicts two lovers on a sunny day.

A Vase With Three Flowers

A Vase With Three Flowers. An atari-like composition, I must admit... Superimposing a gigantic grid over the complex reality of a vase and three beautiful flowers, I still smile thinking of this painting. Now, it sits on a wall in an office, shining a cheerful light. beep. beep. and it was all according to a plan

Vase with Three Apples

Vase with Three Apples. The first synthetic pixelization painting, completed at the end of my first semester of Painting instruction from Lucy Barber (visiting Williamsburg from New York for a year). Working from observation, I used simple geometry to define the forms: three apples, one white vase.

Black Lamp, Illumination (drawing)

This is the study drawing for my painting, "Black Lamp, Illumination," completed with a black ball-point pen. After the drawing, I painted the oil painting in the strict geometrical composition that I eventually called "synthetic pixelization"... Some time after painting the painting, I remember showing it to my mom, who said, "See? Now you've got something to show for how you've spent your time..." or something like that, but her point stuck with me...

Black Lamp, Illumination

One of my favorite paintings, painted in early January, 1998 while on winter break from William & Mary. A fine example of my synthetic pixelization series, the form of a black lamp is implied by simple geometric shapes. The main object sits in an arbitrarily imposed grid...

Still Life with Bottles and Grid

The painting that followed the drawing... The wooden grid structure is an allusion to the synthetic grid overlay that I was using a few years earlier.

Still Life with Bottles and Grid (drawing)

A preliminary sketch, this drawing includes a physical manifestation of the synthetic grid that I had been fascinated with for so long... The wooden net of squares and open cubes came to me through a chance encounter at a dusty thrift shop; I painted it black. In 2004, I was taking a break from over analyzing things and was enjoying painting straight forward still life set-ups with Gwen on a weekly basis. It was a very prolific time...

The Bust as it Emerges from the Formulative Cosmos of the Intellect

Deceptively simple, this drawing exposes the underlying foundation of synthetic pixelization: the of mapping an object to a grid. Similar to how a computer monitor represents images with pixels (discrete geometric forms), in 2002 I was exploring how to train my eye to accomplish the same thing. In this case, it seems that I was also implying a three-dimensionality to the geometry, which was rare in the series...