Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sam Seawright


Musk Rose & Hanbane, 2003
Watercolor on Paper, 47 X 31"

My paintings exist on the ever shifting and ambiguous border between abstraction and representation.
I paint intuitively; the finished painting is never easily resolved, but reveals itself in layers over time. Through series of intimate interactions and reflections, I am always attempting to make the idea of the painting and the paint inseparable. I believe in painting’s imaginal powers, its ability to be both paint and image and yet more than the combination of the two. Paint is liquid, sensual and unpredictable; my art comes about through my continual desire to come near to the sensory side of the flowers and landscapes that speak so deeply to me.
Once I feel connected to a subject, I paint quickly and spontaneously using calligraphic marks, allowing my unconscious to guide my gesture, reacting in the moment and evaluating later.
Out of this process arises a pictorial ambiguity where perception and metaphor are in tension. Flowers provide the ideal vessels for this exploration; they are loaded with centuries of historical, mythological and poetic references, scientific, medicinal and social uses, they tease us with their beauty and humble us in their complexity.
The sources I reference grow out of the rural Georgia landscape of my youth, memories of my parent’s deep religious faith as well as their love of nature. I collect images to use as departure points for my work; these images also serve as anchors to the representational world and fuel for my internal dialog. These images include 19th century botanical etchings, seed catalogs from the 30s, museum post cards as well as my own photographs.
I believe in the possibilities of achieving spiritual content through the compelling metaphors of flowers and landscape. Spirituality addresses the deepest part of what we cannot know. I see no contradiction in leaving questions unanswered in my art, faithfully recording what I see and feel without knowing what the image means.
I strive to make my paintings speak of something singular, unexampled, easy to understand yet enigmatic.

1 comment:

Wendi Gueorguiev said...

Dear Sam,

Love the process in your work and the sense of searching for the line and composition, and also how these all end up fitting and complimenting each other in the final version. Very thoughtful work.

Looking forward to see them at the show,
Best,
Wendi