My New Exhibition 2019.05.07

When I'm right in the middle of the tangle of woods there's a terrible complexity, a marvelous complexity that I love to tease a picture out of. It's not an easy go, It's an interesting thing–wIth me it's the way to get to the heart of the natural world. It's a way to really look at that almost molecular unfolding in the forest. You feel, if you can get it right, the profundity of nature–the incredible richness and variety. It's an amazing thing to be just in the middle of the perfusion of growth and then to be charged with teasing a painting out of it? And then to maintain the essence of it in that painting? I find it to be the biggest challenge I have in that regard. The challenge is to tease a painting from the chaos. Nature on its own is a chaotic unfolding. In the midst of a forest I try to discern a pattern, or an element. To illuminate–in fact eliminate. The issue is to tease. It's what you leave out rather than what you put in.

-James Michalopoulos