landscape
While I consider landscape to be only one of many influences on my work, it's been a pretty obvious one in a few of my recent, post-Ireland paintings, such as the painting above, Carrowmore, 20"x16".

Interpreting landscape in a pictorial way has also happened in the past after I return from travel or a residency. Maybe I'm drawn a more literal or direct approach in order to process some of what I've experienced.

What remains strong in my mind about Ireland are the misty atmosphere around the lake at Annaghmakerrig, the saturate colors of the damp forest, the rugged western seacoast, and perhaps most compelling, a number of megalithic sites made up of ancient cairns and standing stones, which I experienced in the pouring rain (I seem to have very few sunny memories of Ireland!)

The influence of rich colors and rugged textures is also coming through in my more non-objective paintings, which I'm working on at the same time as these few more literal landscapes...and because I identify so strongly as an abstract artist I tend to dismiss the landscapes and think the more abstract way of working is more valid. Yet it seems wrong to box myself in or put up too much resistance to letting a painting evolve in a more representational way.

Besides, I recognize that landscape and nature images have been the most consistent and enduring influences over my lifetime of painting. The expression of nature's complexity and beauty in all its many aspects is the core meaning of my work. So I'm OK with letting in a few bits of objective reality...with letting the occasional landscape be a landscape.

(By the way I should note that all I'm writing here pertains to how I see and interpret my own work...viewers have always tended to read a certain degree of landscape into my work, and that's fine, especially considering that core meaning I just mentioned. I'm just usually the last one to see it.)  ¶ 3:08 PM