Artist's Statement

Making art is a very rewarding way of life. Like being a doctor, construction worker, teacher, or any of the professions which allow one to take pride and satisfaction in one's work, being involved in the discipline of making art has forced me to learn about the nature of reality and about who I am as a human being. It is a discipline--a series of decisions, a commitment to those decisions, and an awareness of what those decisions bring about in our shared reality.

Art is also an ongoing dialogue with the subconscious. Many things come out when creating. Sometimes I am not aware of how those things are interpreted by others (or myself) until they have been around for awhile. Regardless, what I am always aware of while painting is that feeling that comes in a moment when I know I am “on;" it's like dreaming, only very conscious. I like that feeling.

My paintings are representational: when I paint a woman or a truck, I paint THAT woman or THAT truck. I try to portray that which I am observing in the most faithful way I can. Sometimes I take photographs and render the subject in a very realistic fashion (photorealism). Sometimes I get out the pallet knife and paint from direct observation, with bold slashes and broad strokes. In either case, I end up paying attention to what that particular person or thing really looks like. In a similar sense, I believe landscapes represent the power of specific places that have their own personalities--they are personal, insightful portraits of living environments.

This focus on the subject creates a tense juxtaposition for the viewer. Contrary to abstraction or objectification, I seek "subjectification" in my work, urging the viewer to engage in the biography, history, and story of the subject, which is then complimented (or contrasted) by a representational context. Balancing the shifting statements between the life of THAT truck and the role it shares in representing shifting social phenomena is difficult; it's like a Magic Eye--sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't. I think this balance is hard for both artist and audience alike, as it illuminates the very process of making an "artistic statement," but I think it is as challenging as it is rewarding.

So here I am, in my old beat up lawn chair, with my paints, a canvas, and maybe my cowboy hat....I'm doing what I love.

Any of the true disciplines are open-ended in their abilities to show us more than we thought we knew. Communication is sort of like a game of baseball: most of the activity extends out into admittedly wide fields, but on rare occasions, one knocks one out of the park and somebody actually catches it. That's art. And when I get over the wall, I feel like I have accomplished my goal. I have, as Susan Langer has said, “conveyed knowledge about emotion through symbolic form."

--JD King