Blue: 2015-2023

Blue is an outgrowth of a group of four paintings created for a collaborative, multimedia, site-specific installation titled Portal.

The diverse works of Blue continue an engagement with the chromatic nuances, symbolism and associations of the hue, and the ethereal properties of gilding in painting, mixed media, and digital prints.

The surfaces of gold leaf that appear in mixed media works ONE and TWELVE and the digital prints on aluminum and paper were photographically sourced from a reproduction of Simone Martini’s Annunciation by Russian painter-copyist and restorer, Nicholas Lochoff.  Part of the Lochoff collection housed in the cloister of the Frick Fine Arts Building at the University of Pittsburgh, the Martini reproduction served as the primary reference and counterpoint for the Portal paintings.  

Painting

Déjà vu Blue: video

MIXED MEDIA

Blue isis: Temple I

Linea Terminale: Book V

ONE

The number one is the second natural number in the infinite sequence of natural numbers; unit, origin, presence.

twelve

In English, twelve is the largest number with a single-syllable name. Twelve is one of two known sublime numbers in mathematics: the second sublime number has 76 digits: 6086555670238378989670371734243169622657830773351885970528324860512791691264. Twelve is the basic unit of time keeping and a universal symbol of divinity and perfection. High energy physics identifies twelve elementary matter particles. 

Composed of gold leaf digitally photographed and printed on twelve panels of aluminum composite material and overpainted with ultramarine blue, TWELVE rhythmically synthesizes reflection and absorption of light in fusions of geometric and gestural painting, with a nod to the mysteries and associations surrounding the number twelve. 

TWELVE: in two arrangements

Apostolo

Materia

Twelve: video

On March 1, 2020, Twelve premiered as a video light projection with the Microtonal Music Festival Beyond 2020, at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA.  Paired with composer Agustín Castilla-Ávila’s composition for two microtonal guitars; El Canto de los Acantilados, Twelve gradually materializes in an arc of time above and behind guitar duo, Fret-X, as an illuminated, 12 part frieze.  Appearing gradually as the music begins, Twelve lingers in full intensity, then slowly disappears as the music delicately concludes.  

21

21 alludes to microtonal tuning systems developed by composer Mathew Rosenblum that fuse the normal 12 notes with added notes from the natural overtone series, including 21-note-to-the-octave systems.

Digital Prints

Goldilocks 13

The Goldilocks images expand exploration of digital composition with photographed gold leaf and electronically sampled ultramarine blue.  A narrative of digitally constructed blue geometries float on intricately textured surfaces of photo captured gilding.  Abstracted inferences of luxury and the sacred fuse with mysterious, otherworldly atmospheres of luminosity. Astronomy uses the label Goldilocks to identify exoplanets in the area around a star where it is not too hot and not too cold to host liquid water.

SuperSymmetry

The SuperSymmetry digital prints connect the sacred associations of gilding and ultramarine blue with select dates from the cosmic calendar.  The upper sections of the prints are photographs of reflected and refracted sun light; projected and scattered onto the interior walls of the artist’s 115-year-old home through its many beveled, leaded glass windows. 

The electronically colorized interior images of light and dark, paired with photographed segments of gilding create a visual “Supersymmetry” between translations of solar events produced in the physical world with reflective surfaces of reverence. Each SuperSymmetry image is 12 x 4.5 in., printed on 28 x 21 in. Hahnemuhle Fine Art Bamboo Paper.