The Fruit Still Life Series grew out of a move to a rural area on the central coast of California. Like the drawings and paintings of nudes started just prior to the move, there was a need to work more intimately with a subject. Also like the nudes, the fruit images were painted from life and my own photographs, not from found photos, like many of the earlier works.
The world doesn't need more still life or nude imagery, but I was curious to see what would happen when run through my sensibilities. The years of laboring over formal art concerns and approaching a humble genre was a challenge. Interestingly, a plum painted as large as a basketball felt more sensuous than the most explicitly rendered nude.
The surface treatment in both the fruit and nude images are similar in that the painted, or drawn marks are very activated, or expressively rendered. In previous artworks I had eliminated evidence of the "hand" to produce a cool, slick photographic look. From a distance these new images appear crisp and clear, but up close the agitated surfaces undulate with a soft pulse.
Either way, there is no redeeming "message" that underlies the content of these pictures, and I view them as total abstractions.
