Pessimist Sign at Work

30x30 cm
oil paint and stand oil on primed vinyl flooring
2007

These pieces are for me an emotional exercise with the goal being attaining a level of calm and rationale. They are linked in my mind to the karesansui, also known as Japanese rock gardens or Zen gardens.
Those traditional gardens are most often based on the concept of the large stones being the islands and the sand and gravel being the ocean. In my paintings I see the thick portions of paint, where I first put down the paint in several places on the surface being the islands, as once put down they can not be moved. The stand oil which becomes blended with the paint is the gravel and sand, as such it becomes the ocean.
These paintings although created slowly during one sitting can not be changed after the fact, only touched up for a couple of days afterwards, this cause them to be singularities. Even if I was to use the same colour, same quantities, and put the paint in the same place they would never be the same just as karesansui.
However they are linked to attaining calm, in my own mind, only so much as most people find things like gardening calming.