Statement - 2023
When working in the studio, I spend a lot of time in a place I might call my painting-ocean. It is a psychological space in which I am submerged in my own notions of space and time. Beneath its surface, the busy goings-on of the everyday are muffled. Cavernous possibility engulfs me. These paintings are about being in that space.
The experience of making this work was akin to diving into a deep and narrow pool not wide enough to turn around in, but with an opening on the other end. I knew ahead of time that going through would require tremendous energy, contained within a single breath. I did not know how deep the pool was, what was at the bottom, or if I’d come back.
As I was making the work, I found the boundary at the periphery of my painting-ocean. In my practice, interesting painting happens when I am working at the edge of my skill-set. I try to make work that I didn’t have the skills to make yesterday, but that I just might be capable of today.
It is on that periphery that I try to careen over the edge to see what is below. There, I am continually startled to find what seems to be a whole other painting-ocean. And getting to that deeper ocean requires both a deep breath and the trust that I will come out on the other side into a space with oxygen. This is what it means to go down for air.
In that sense, this is a show about trusting the work. It is about traveling between worlds: between the ocean of my practice so far and the ocean of my practice as it is yet to be. I decided, in the end, to make the show about neither of those spaces—it is neither history, nor fantasy—but instead, an investigation of the space between.
We think of the horizon as a line or boundary—and it is—but it is also a space. I found that by taking the horizon, pinching it between my fingers, and tipping it backward or forward, or a little to the side, I was able to expand its territory within the picture plane. I wanted this space—the space at the end of the deep and narrow pool–to become familial to me. I wanted to take discomfiting, transitional, in-between space and make it visible. This space only registers—optically—as space (as opposed to flat color) because of the figures (bodies or dories) passing through it. The horizon is visually defined in relationship to transition, to movement. The border is made not for passing through, but by passing through.
I sometimes take for granted the nature of the line between ocean and sky, between figure and ground. These edges are entire worlds unto themselves. The figures in these works are those of us on journeys through the in-between horizons. They are diligently going about the business of becoming themselves.
When everything feels upside down, or as though I am inside a deep and narrow pool, I think it’s good to remember that between being where I am and where I am heading is a place unto itself. The horizon is, after all, a remarkable place to be, because it exists while we pass through it.
A Note on Color
Occasionally, I make a friend who is much older than me, and find that because we are from different generations, our friendship isn’t built on the convenience of a shared culture, but rather on shared affinities more profound and fundamental to each of our own selves. These friendships are incandescent—not just because they are genuine and rare—but also because they are, by their very nature, brief.
Some of the more beautiful things in life are like ships that pass in the night, fleeting and sublime. This is the best way I can describe what it has been like to work with both YInMn and Manganese blue in this body of work. YInMn and Manganese are splendid pigments from different generations, and to be a painter painting across the momentary bridge in time between them has been a real privilege.
Manganese is a brilliant, transparent, greenish blue that was primarily produced between the 1940’s and 70s. YInMn is a semi-opaque, warm blue that first synthesized in 2009, and became commercially available in 2020. They are historically opposed (there is a limited supply of Manganese pigment remaining, while YInMn production is just beginning) but also chromatically opposed—as far as blues go, they couldn’t be more different. Manganese is toward the green end of blue, and YInMn is toward the violet end of blue. Their opposing hues expand the palette of blue, chromatically, in both directions, creating a deeper, richer conversation within the world of my paintings.
To come into the studio every day and be able to slip back and forth—between past and future—is a privilege. I have come to regard my current place in time as engaging as where I am heading–and where I have been. Working with these materials shifts my perspective on a larger scale: I have more space to dispassionately assess the world around me. To borrow language from the world of paint, I feel that I’m living in a brilliant present, between a fugitive past and an opaque future.
Blue Pigments in New Work (listed by Color Index names)
PB 15 - Phthalocyanine Blue
PB 15:3 - Phthalocyanine Blue (“Phthalocyanine Reddish” or “Blue Lake")
PB 27 - Prussian Blue (oil only)
PB 28 - Cobalt Blue
PB 29 - Ultramarine Blue
PB 33 - Manganese Blue (oil only)
PB 36 - Cobalt Chromite (“French Cerulean”)
PB 86 - YInMn Blue (oil only)
N/A-NB - Sodalite (watercolor only)
Manganese Blue (PB 33)
“Manganese itself is not found as a free element in nature, and in 1774, the Swedish chemist Johan Gottlieb Gahn was the first to reduce a sample of manganese dioxide to manganese metal. Manganese blue itself is a modern, inorganic synthetic pigment invented in 1907 and patented in 1935. It is produced by heating sodium sulphate, potassium permanganate and barium nitrate at 750-800 degrees Celsius to create barium manganate. This is a clear and punchy azure blue.
Like many modern pigments, manganese blue was first employed in commercial industry, where it was widely used to tint cement for swimming pools. It then became popular as an artist’s colour and this continued until production of barium manganate was phased out worldwide in the 1970s. Although production of manganese blue paint from pigment stocks continued in Germany until the 1990s, this soon became unfeasible due to the cost, and changes in environmental and safety regulations.”
Windsor & Newton ("Spotlight on Manganese Blue")
YInMn Blue (PB 86)
“YInMn is named after the chemical makeup, minus the O: Yttrium (Y), Indium (In), Manganese (Mn), and Oxygen (O). While the color is often referred to by its phonetic pronunciation "Yin Min", we’re [Gamblin] also proud that it’s earned a nickname of our home state: Oregon Blue.
The discovery of the pigment was a bit of an accident when chemist Mas Subramanian and his students at Oregon State University (OSU) were exploring materials to aid in the manufacturing of electronics. Then graduate student Andrew E. Smith made a surprising discovery when heating a new formula: it turned blue. Professor Subramanian replied, “Luck favors the alert mind.” That was in 2009.
Historically, blue pigments are known to be unstable. Since ancient times blue has struggled with poor lightfastness and toxic components. YInMn was synthesized at 2000°F which indicated that it’s an extremely stable pigment. The team at OSU was onto something and they had a feeling it was big. After years of rigorous testing, YInMn Blue pigment was officially released for production in 2016.”
Gamblin ("About YInMn Blue")