In addition to the mythology of our culture, we all have certain experiences, expressions and images that have deep personal significance and meaning. These form the foundation of our personal mythology. Some of us have richer and more elaborate personal mythologies than others. Recently I came to the realization that I was mainly painting the images of my own personal mythology. I am self taught as a painter and after painting for eleven years, I consider that to my advantage as the icons of my mythology are rarely something out there in the material world. My paintings lie somewhere between the presence and the absence of an identifiable image. It would have been a waste of time for me to have spent years learning the techniques to make my paintings look realistic because the subjects of my mythology are mostly imaginary. I do not go outside to nature to find the subjects of my paintings, but rather I paint inside using my imagination and the images of my personal mythology.
As a retired professional psychologist, I have been trained in the use of projective tests such as the Rorschach Inkblots where the observer is presented with purposely-vague images. The observer makes of it what he or she will and that is how I want others to view my paintings. I make of it an image within the framework of my own personal mythology. Whether it has any meaning to anyone else is to be determined by the observer in the act of observing my paintings. I paint those images which come to my mind from the reservoir of my personal mythology and I begin painting that image and then the painting takes on a life of its own. I am trying to achieve paintings that simply, mysteriously, and beautifully illustrate the iconography of my personal myths. Many of my paintings reflect light quite differently as one walks past them. This is also fitting as they reflect the ever-shifting images rising up from our own personal mythologys that float through our imaginations.
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