the truth

distraction  60" x 96"  oil/canvas

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painting is a truth that makes us realize the lie.  from my point of view painting does not lie. it can't.  it is a perfect reflection of the hand, the person, the spirit that made it. painting is 100% accurate, right on the target.  what we are told about the world to be true, what we are told happened in history is a lie,  superficial, full of deception, 1 side of the coin, only part of the story,  an imaginative and fictional account.   the great gift of painting is not a merely an interesting picture or a pretty picture, a souvenir of a place or time. the great gift of painting is what it urges forth from the painter and, with some hope, the viewer.  making paintings, the process of painting, the rigorous, unrelenting and demanding process is, fundamentally, the always liberating, sometimes painful undulating path that the truth must take,  squeezing out from the pores and cracks of our being, the depths of our heart, the shadowy crypt of our subconscious.

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