For me, a representational painting often starts out as purposeful composition of a thing in the landscape, or in a room, on a table, etc. The development of the painting tends to be an exercise in repeated attempts at simplification. I’m constantly chiding myself for letting it get too complicated. When it comes to boats, buoys, birds and other objects in a low tide landscape however, there is a certain kind of complexity that I strive for. That is the interplay of the object, its shadow, and its reflection.
“Parallel Tide” - Ink on Paper
The object itself - let’s say it’s a boat like the yellow dory that I’ve been stalking for decades on the mud flats of Brewster, Massachusetts - is a thing that needs to be rendered with a certain amount of precision and rigor. I don’t generally start a new painting by saying, “It’s been a long and exhausting week at work. I really need some precision and rigor in the studio this weekend…” But I know that the starting point of the well delineated object anchors the painting, and allows me to experiment more freely with shadows and reflections. More importantly I know that the interplay of these three things is a pretty intoxicating mix in a painting.
“Reflection and Memory” - Oil on Panel
In “Reflection and Memory”, derived from the “Parallel Tide” ink sketch, the composition as a whole is extremely simple – boat / horizon line / mooring rope / water. Because of the forced perspective looking straight at the bow of the dory, the reflection and shadow are allowed to take up more of the picture plane of the canvas, and are thrust into the foreground as the sandy bottom of the mudflat rolls under the viewers feet. As a practical matter, again because of the view point, the shadow in this painting has to contend with the reflection, and the reflection has to sort out what it means to be partially in shadow. This may sound like a chore, bit in short, it’s the good stuff!
“Interlude” - Oil on Panel
In “Interlude”, same boat (…in fact, the reference photo may have been taken on the same day, but who knows. I have literally hundreds of photos of this boat and I have no idea who owns it…) the viewpoint is pulled down to the level of the bow and the reflection is following us. From this angle, the shadow, at least how I’ve chosen to compose it, plays more of an anchoring role, pun mostly intended. It let’s the dory sit on the sand with the bottom of the bow slightly breaking the plane of the water. Dory, shadow and reflection all come together at this point telling, what is for me, the important story of the literal flatness of the mud flat and the object sitting on it and shaping it.
“Blue Tide” - Oil on Panel
“Blue Tide” is another example of the grounding effect of the shadow. The volume of the boat compressed under its own weight onto the sand of the mudflat. Nothing is really quite flat however, even on the widest and longest stretches of Cape Cod’s bayside beaches. Water still flows and gathers around the hull and this provides that opportunity again for the shadow and reflection to cross each other and create a rich interplay which for me is ultimately the subject of the work. The miracle is that it gets remade with every tide and is never the same twice.