For a painter a surface is like the sea Transparent, translucent, a skin, a membrane, a passage Between up here and down there, Between in here and out there Malleable, moving, dynamic, reflective.
For a painter a surface is where you connect with Being Where things become visible, where we see the connections Between what is in here and out there What was and what is and what will be.
Illusion is always present on a surface A surface is never only what it seems A surface is constantly changing, ablating, concreting, eroding, resisting Like the sea it is forever healing, always changing, always the same.
A surface is entrancing A surface is appealing No matter what horror may lie beneath it A surface seduces, thank God.
A surface holds us in front of existence A surface gives us a place to stand A skin to wear, another to interact with A surface gives us what we need.
A surface can be the blankness we begin with Or it can be the film of colored mud we build upon it. The blankness might be an abstraction, an ideal nothingness Or it can be the air out of which presences emerge.
A surface blank or marked is a thing and also the air The intervening invisibility, both real and illusory Made substance and then seen through A surface is a challenge to awareness.
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