Beguiled By Caravaggio. Series 2018

Series Statement

​

A constant in much of my work has been use of the black spectrum.  There is a power, a three-dimensionality, and a diversity within the black spectrum that I find compelling.  The black spectrum was perhaps first exquisitely exploited by
Caravaggio at the dawn of the 17th century.  He was famous for the realistic yet very dramatic rendition of his human subjects, placing them in bright shafts of light amid a textured and rich sea of blackness.  It is often the violent, sharp contrast of his images with the darkness that draws the viewer's attention in his works, but for me there is much in his use of the black spectrum alone that calls my attention.  The recent biography "Sacred and Profane", by Andrew Graham-Dixon (2010), notes that he was convicted of murder and his sexuality was suspect, requiring him to often live life on the run and in the shadows.  While we do not know whether the darkness in his life informed his creative use of darkness and shadows, it is the power and the depth of that darkness that has drawn me in.  In this series of minimal geometrical paintings based on segmented circles amid areas of textures and contrasts, I focus on the black spectrum and the hidden messages that may be contained within its three-dimensionality.