Songs of Our Past

 Untitled

2021, oil on canvas

36" x 48"

 

(aspects 1 & 2)

 

 

Somewhere in this broken and disconnected world is a fellow human who is lost and searching for answers.  One who is in need of assurance, encouragement, and strength: assurance that his life holds meaning; encouragement to carve his own path; strength to break free from society's mold.

This is for you.

May you know life deeply.

 

-OH

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

Amelioration

Markings, No. III

oil on canvas, 2020

36" x 48"

Every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.  -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


↟ ↟

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

↟ ↟

Markings

Markings, Week No. 2-6

oil on canvas, 2020

22" x 28"

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

↟ ↟

They were mountains after all.

No. 4

mixed media on paper, 2019

24" x 22"

(from Alexander Supertramp series)

Wanderers

 AS: No. 3

mixed media on paper, 2019

24" x 22"

(from Alexander Supertramp series)

Across the way, the ocean roars and rumbles
It softens just enough
for whispers to make it out of the night
An exchange
between rising sun
and luminous moon
quiets the land, anchors it
All is still
the quiet reverence of promise.

Write me poems from wherever you find yourself
and they will be heard even unspoken.

Subtleties

AS: No. 2

mixed media on paper, 2019

24" x 22"

"That's what artists do, that's what poets do . . . we all do it.  We start with something, and sometimes we destroy everything that we've made in order to get to the core place where we started from."
-Patti Smith

---

Returning to that core place . . .
 

(Alexander Supertramp series)

Teacher

 AS: No. 1

mixed media on paper, 2019

24" x 22"

How does one accept a lesson in grief?

By our mere humanness, we deny it.  

Refusing to be its pupil.

Protesting against its movement, its colloquial speech.

Scribbling over its illustrative diagrams, layering papier-mâché.

I wonder this: what does life offer to the one who accepts the lesson, even learns from it,

yet finds himself in continual conflict with his teacher?

Can a lesson be taught if the process does not reach completion?

Is there a dimension of grief that remains?

It is a longing of the deepest measures for the one who wishes to let go and return to himself,

to function and desire life again

without being reminded that grief is still present.

--

Opening up 2019 with a series very close to my heart.

Alexander Supertramp

A visual body of work exploring the meaning behind Chris McCandless's words, "I now walk into the wild." 

↟↟

(edited)

2018

T:

Color V: November
(from The Color of Emotion series)

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 22"

B:

Color VI: November
(from The Color of Emotion series)

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 22"

---

Maybe it's become tradition.

To pen a valediction for the year that was on the eve of the year to be.

On this particular eve, I am typing my entry from a hotel room overlooking the town of Banff, Alberta.  Across rooftops, the snow-covered mountain peaks of the Canadian Rockies beckon.  I mull over life something wild.  

As I reflect on the past twelve months, I see just how far I have trekked.  Allow me to be clear though: the year did not come without its difficulties.  While I experienced a record number of soaring highs, I hit a record number of pedaling lows, too.

And somewhere between the uniformed calendar squares and my distaste for them, I stopped counting.

Undoubtedly, my visit to New England and the Catskills in October was the highlight of 2018.  Autumn was alive in the east.  I plan on making it an annual tradition--to visit the region each autumn. 

As my eyelids grow ever heavy and I am on the verge of sleep,  I am feeling a multitude of emotions for 2018.  I suppose I can simply leave it there.

Wishing all a magical new year.

-OH

Personal

Color IV: August y September
(from The Color of Emotion series)

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 22"

The Color of Emotion (1 of 3)

Color I: June

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 21.5"

The Color of Emotion (2 of 3)

Color II: June

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 21.5"

The Color of Emotion (3 of 3)

Color III: July

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 21.5"

Begin Again

Memory, No. 05-01

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 26"

Happiness,

Memory, No. 0218-2: A.S.

mixed media on paper, 2018

24" x 26"

It took me a while to get here, this place of clarity,

to accept the reality that we, perhaps, were meant only for a temporary space in time.
A blip on the radar some would call it.

Setting all guesses aside,
for a period of two months,

you and I were very much real.  We were as real as I could have ever hoped for or 

imagined.  More real than the pigments on my fingertips when I paint, or the cold on my skin

during my morning run.  More real than those before you.  I trust any lingering sadness is a singular emotion created

from the great, wild hopes of someone who finally allowed herself to feel deeply

enough for another person. 

I hurt as genuinely as I did for you

because the universe was calling out to my humanness.  

We are who we are, and I choose only to take with me that of which I am certain:

I, one humble fleeting speck of existence, was met with a brilliant, like-minded thinker.
You challenged my aloneness.
You challenged my perception of happiness. 

I experienced what many others go through their entire lifetime without knowing . . .

An incomparable connection with 
a fellow human.

There is ample reason to be sad about loss, but every reason to 
find happiness in what was gained from our time together.

OH

Naive

Memory, No. 0118-4/0218-1

mixed media on paper, 2018

21" x 24"

Conversating Lines

;

Memory, No. 0118-3

mixed media on paper, 2018

21" x 24"

Listen for the silence that hangs at the end of each of her sentences.

She hurts, but lacks the words to express how she hurts.

She paints.  It is the way in which she communicates.