Dark Adaptation
2018
The optical process of our eyes adjusting to lower light levels is known as “dark adaptation”. Darkness is a common experience, as in: “I cannot see” or “night has fallen”, and darkness can be an object as in deep obsidian stone. Within the paint body are powdered pigments, volcanic black salt, sandpaper, dust and the particulate of geodes, natural flake mica, copper tape and copper filings, powdered graphite and charcoal. In making dark paintings, this work also references and re-animates many conversations throughout the last century as early as Malevich and including the work art historically referred to as the “Black paintings” by artists like Ad Reinhart and Robert Rauschenberg. It is a radical notion that the object of a painting might allow a person be aware and sensitized to their own contemplation in space and time. The wall color, textiles, and gallery seating are all designed to work toward that end. Like eyesight adjusting, the more slowly one looks the more there is to see.