Walls and windows : Ixion revisited

The style and the subject matter of these five paintings have roots in some of my earlier work. Since 1973, however, the development of the wall and window concept has been strongly influenced by courses I have taken and papers I have written. Significant in the formative phase of this work have been a course in perspective drawing, work in ceramics investigating openings in three-dimensional objects, a design project concentrating on apertures in square cubes, and faculty critiques and evaluations. Especially helpful were the two research projects I carried out in the spring of 1974 on the role of the window in fifteenth century Netherlandish painting, and on the use of the window in modern painting and sculpture. However, my primary motivation for this series has been the personal fascination with what was happening visually in the process of painting. It is essentially a watercolor technique applied to canvas. There is very little off-the-canvas mixing of pigments. Value and intensity are both developed through many applications of thin acrylic washes, which also give the canvas a rich luminosity which I find highly desirable