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

↟ ↟

Studies from Woodside

Quick studies: Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas (5" x 7"). 

Painted among my wild trees.

Thinking of autumn.

 

The Forest

Memory, No. 5

mixed media on paper, 2017

26" x 40" 

---


Stand quietly, lift one's eyes toward the elevated crowns, to the scattered pieces of a steel blue sky.  Hear her speak.  Hear her history.  
For there is none who speaks as eloquently as she, whose words pacify as many wounded spaces as hers.  Disappearing sheets of fog, slow moving mist, slants of sunlight whispering warm ochre into moss-covered shelters.  Handsome woodland fragrance, earthy musk.  A haze resembling a thin veil falls assuredly over the conifers.  A gentle wind sweeps through the aged state, and leaves descend onto the ground without hurry, carving sienna and umber impressions along the way.  Hear the faint rushing of water nearby; breathe in deeply the clean, sweet air of Eden.  These are her words, her conversations, the experiences she gives selflessly. Stand quietly, and you will hear her.


---



For Nala.
03.19.15
"In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows."  http://paperglassbottle.blogspot.com/2015/04/still.html.

Mid-September WIP

(from yesterday)

(from today)

In the past few days, I laid down strokes and gave this piece a sense of direction in terms of composition and color . . . Curious to see where this one is going. 

That, and I'm taking cues from nature and Cy Twombly. 

What a pair.

The Portraits of Our Humanness

III

oil on canvas, 2016

40" x 40"

(Aspect 2)

(Aspect 3)

(Aspect 4)

" There are those who leave the fire and move toward the deeper reaches of the forest where they believe a source of light to exist which is more intense.  A light that breathes, not at all a fixed symbol, a light that alludes yet beckons - the unity of which lies hidden in the chaos." 

-Paul Jenkins, American Abstract Expressionist 

---

Maybe I am afraid to bid it farewell
this flickering fire. 
It warms me one moment, then scorches me in another
as I sit observantly beside this mildly tamed inferno.
Are those lies I catch in between its dancing flames
flames, which rise and fall into a color spell of fiery coppers tinged
with the glow of the harvest moon?
Maybe I am afraid to bid it farewell
this flickering fire
for then I would need to believe a greater one exists
and deeper into the forest I will have to go
a little colder, though perhaps wiser
with the burns from the former still on my skin.

On Exhibit: October's End

October's End (2013)

oil on canvas, 40" x 50"

Currently on exhibit at Marin MoCA

more information can be found here 

(i.e. full roster of exhibiting artists)

---

Honored to be included in this show (and doubly honored for the Honorable Mention).  Two and a half weeks left to see the forty-nine-piece exhibition before it closes on July 17, 2016.

I overheard a museum patron comment that this show was worth the trek to Marin/Novato.

I would have to say I agree, though I may be the slightest bit biased. 

For Now

The Caverns in Her (I, no. ii)

2016, oil on canvas

40" x 60"

(Aspect 2)

(Aspect 3)

(Aspect 4)

Perpetual winters, youthful springs.

There are those who thrive in the unhurried pace of winter, abide in its dropped temperature, and build fires from flittering embers in a dying wood pile.  The December-March gardeners who wait patiently for the return on the seeds they have sown, who take the needle-sharp thorns along with the cushion of their tender pink petals.

Then there are those who dance most beautifully in the light rhythm of spring, stand resolutely still in its April downpour, and welcome the longer days with barefoot, porch-light evening songs.  The humble guardians who lay palms of warmth on the frost-bitten, who breathe gaiety and wonder back into the disenchanted.

Some seasons stay a little longer than expected.
Others, shorter.

People are the same way.

She Paints

(Aspect 2, close-up)

(Aspect 1)

Work in progress . . .

oil and charcoal on canvas, 40" x 60" 

--

As I keep a steadfast hand on this new set of paintings for 2016, I am encouraging myself to return to former habits--habits of old, habits of significance.  Most importantly though, it is a raw return to the discipline. 

(These images were taken yesterday; painting has evolved since then.  More WIP photos to come.)

Nuances

The Eighth Year

Completed 2016, oil on canvas

30" x 40"

 

 (Aspect 2) 

(Aspect 3) 

(Aspect 4)

I didn't say goodbye to 2015.

I didn't pardon it.

And if I'm honest with myself, I would say the real reason for this was because I had no desire to do so. I didn't want to spend more time looking back on a year that was decent at best, excruciating at worst, and pretending the last twelve months were great when they weren't.  

Because they weren't.  

But there were those rare moments that managed to elude the storms before and after them.  Those are the memories I prefer to remain with me--the quietly brilliant ones.

And if I am even more honest with myself, I can say I made some valuable discoveries along the way.  Discoveries about purposeful commitment, resilience, relationships, and rooted faith.  Love, too (sort of).  Which is why I am taking these discoveries and turning them into something worth looking back on in a year.

--

First completed work of 2016.  

Four aspects.  

A Revisit, A Redo

07-03-15 EDIT: Painting is complete.

---

original post:

 (new title TBD; work in progress)

One year ago, I finished Release (see below image).  At the time, I felt the painting was at a place of completion with regard to the vision I had and the person who I was then.  In January, I began to revisit areas of the piece, which resulted in a slow process of redirection throughout the past three months.  Finally (dare I say it), the painting reflects more of who I am today than who I was twelve months prior.  There is a couple of spots I still need to finesse, but I expect to lay down the finishing touches by month's end.

Formerly Release (2014, oil on canvas, 40" x 50"):

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.

Work

Catch

2014, oil on canvas

40" x 50"

To Heal

 Release

2014, oil on canvas

40" x 50"

Finished this painting today.  The process took approximately two months of commitment and a whole lot of risk-taking (overlaid the canvas with one painting after another in an attempt to bring it to its final stage).  

When I swung the last brushstroke and realized the painting was complete, it could not have came at a greater moment or on a better day.  It felt right in every sense of the word. 

Painting has a power to heal me when I'm broken; it has the ability to cleanse and remove toxins from the spirit.  Finishing this painting this afternoon merely uncovered my determination and will to work through difficulty.   There is a steadfast soldier in each one of us.  Continue walking in the light and do not allow the actions of another hinder your pursuit of self discovery, meaning, and fruitful relationships.