The Fifth Piece

An Unfamiliar Autumn

2020, oil on canvas
40" x 60"

 

In 2013, I decided to close my series, Autumn Soliloquies, after the fourth painting.  Having labored greatly over the existing body of work, there grew a unique desire to protect it and its integrity.  Somewhere between the start and finish points of October's End, I became convinced it was necessary to divert my focus elsewhere in order to avoid a stalemate. 

Seven years later, in July 2020, I began working on the second coming of Autumn Soliloquies.

. . .

 

An Unfamiliar Autumn, in its current state, is the culmination of many months' work.

 

It is a portrait of days marked by uncertainty and masked in anxiety.  A portrait of fears and the attempts to assuage and overcome them.  An expressive study of humanity's regression in values and the excision of meaningful purpose.  It is a look at the overflow of thoughts, as well as the delicate threads by which individuals are desperately hanging.  A look at the dichotomy between External and Internal.  

 

It is a poem for abandoned truths and virtues, for forgotten places and people.  A poem for the natural world, for the scintillating celestial bodies that grace the deep ebony skies and the comfort they provide for those of us who are searching.  

And there are so many of us who are searching.

 

Multiple layers comprise the foundation to this piece and I consider each layer to hold individual value and significance.  Though I spent the last few years experimenting with different visual elements, I gladly returned to my trademark palette of earth tones for this painting.  Unsurprisingly, I also reemployed an amorphous composition, which is joined by floating, indiscernible parts and scattered lines.  These physical details were brought together in an effort to create a sense of harmonious union between the frenetic and fluid sensations occurring throughout the work.

  

. . .

 

The objective of An Unfamiliar Autumn is to convey the unfamiliarity of a period that feels both short and long, graceful yet embattled.  An unfamiliarity that extends far beyond one season and into an entire year that has been held captive by endless unknowns. 

May we work together to move past the unknowns.

-OH

The Colors of Silence

Markings, No. IV

oil on canvas, 2020

22" x 28"

Swim in an ocean of internal dialogue.

Speak only when spoken words are of true necessity.  

Write candidly. 
Make meaningful marks.

Yield to purpose.  Refuse to supplant purpose with practicality.

Allow lessons to become teachers of light, 

the colors of silence.

-OH

Flow

Markings, No. II (Week 6-8)

oil on canvas, 2020

22" x 28"

The words flowed right out of me in the form of paint.

-OH

↟ ↟

The Making of Marks

Markings, No. I (Week 2-6, Reworked)

oil on canvas, 2020

22" x 28"

There is nothing I cannot paint over.
-Richard Diebenkorn

---

The unsettling feeling of dissatisfaction coupled with a curiosity surrounding a life unknown to the present one, I set to the task of risking what was for what could be.  In so doing, I am able to give the painting its full meaning, and myself the courage to trust in what I do not see, but know to exist.  

Each mark I make develops a memory within the work and my process, regardless of whether or not I layer over it.  The mark is forever a part of the whole--merging with the new and engaging with it, holding both permanence and impermanence.

-OH

↟ ↟

Forgotten Place

Forgot about this diptych . . .
Early March 2014.  Oil on canvas.  24" x 24" per panel.
Untitled (for now).

WIP Glimpse

(work in progress)

2014, oil on canvas

40" x 40"

With all of the different changes occurring in my life, I am grateful (and beyond humbled) for the gift of art-making.  The act of painting simultaneously sets my heart ablaze and at ease.  Creating expressive imagery on physical surfaces is my permanence in this temporal place.  

I paint with the sole intention to touch and elevate the lives with whom my work crosses paths.  My commitment is to God and to this purpose for which He has kept me earthbound.  And so I paint for no other reason than to connect people with art that rests on the rawness of emotion, honesty, and truth.