Earl Grenville Killeen
Artist's Statement
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In 2017, a cancer diagnosis spurred me to pick up my brushes after a long hiatus in my ability to be creatively productive. Painting since then with persistence and passion, and working now on my sixth series of watercolors, I have come to see the transformations in my works and in my process as expressions of transformations in myself as a person and as an artist.
As an artist, I have embraced the development of new methods, sometimes by the invention born of necessity, sometimes by happy accident. For example, a technique I rely on to burnish layers of paint, and to create textures and patterns I could not achieve with a brush, began as an attempt to entirely remove the paint from its support using a small power sander. |
Recently-adopted techniques include applying water-soaked beach sand to the painting's surface and scraping it off when it dries, or spraying with water and then "twirling" (tilting and rotating the painting to coax the wet paint into softening sharp edges). Most importantly, I've been transformed as an artist, at each stage of the process, by lots of essential patience (learned the hard way) waiting for the paint to dry.
As a person, looking back over five years of my work, I discover the stages of an inner metamorphosis unrolling from one series to the next. The subjects of the first two series are machines and gadgets, made of metal, age-worn, depicted (not in their entirety but only as a portion) in stark isolation against a background color. The machines of Totemics are hulking construction equipment, worse for wear despite their heavy armor, consigned to exist on empty lots; the gadgets (antiquated household items and rusted bicycles) of Mechanostalgia are lighter and scaled to everyday life, but still (outwardly) inanimate.
Softer and more organic materials, integrated into whimsical compositions in The Persistence of Promise series, create settings for the ubiquitous "characters" -- the winged maple seeds that suggest possibility for new growth and flights of fancy. In the early images in this series, the seeds are stuck in place -- taped, pinned, dangling, trapped, or lying inert; as the series progresses, the seeds flit about, mimicking fireflies, moths, and even birds flying in the open sky. Upstretched human arms make an appearance in one painting. A very short series, Transisiton, depicts the passage of time, and fish that seem more at home in the sky than in a bowl of water.
The next series takes me Through the Wormhole into the abstract as a sort of brain-cleanser, to free the mind and spirit into pure design and color, dancing them into a holding pattern of balance and harmony.
Now, in Out of This Soul, I seem to have emerged from defensively painting in metaphors to showing myself in my human form. With a dreamlike sensibility, allusive elements help to evoke my vulnerability and, perhaps, self-empowerment.
As a person, looking back over five years of my work, I discover the stages of an inner metamorphosis unrolling from one series to the next. The subjects of the first two series are machines and gadgets, made of metal, age-worn, depicted (not in their entirety but only as a portion) in stark isolation against a background color. The machines of Totemics are hulking construction equipment, worse for wear despite their heavy armor, consigned to exist on empty lots; the gadgets (antiquated household items and rusted bicycles) of Mechanostalgia are lighter and scaled to everyday life, but still (outwardly) inanimate.
Softer and more organic materials, integrated into whimsical compositions in The Persistence of Promise series, create settings for the ubiquitous "characters" -- the winged maple seeds that suggest possibility for new growth and flights of fancy. In the early images in this series, the seeds are stuck in place -- taped, pinned, dangling, trapped, or lying inert; as the series progresses, the seeds flit about, mimicking fireflies, moths, and even birds flying in the open sky. Upstretched human arms make an appearance in one painting. A very short series, Transisiton, depicts the passage of time, and fish that seem more at home in the sky than in a bowl of water.
The next series takes me Through the Wormhole into the abstract as a sort of brain-cleanser, to free the mind and spirit into pure design and color, dancing them into a holding pattern of balance and harmony.
Now, in Out of This Soul, I seem to have emerged from defensively painting in metaphors to showing myself in my human form. With a dreamlike sensibility, allusive elements help to evoke my vulnerability and, perhaps, self-empowerment.
