A358 Visage One (Thought)
15.5x5" poplar carving
$250.00
Anomaly Series
16 January, 2005
357 M Labelle 50th anniversary commission
357 M Labelle 50th anniversary commission
20x16" casein on canvas
private collection
15 January, 2005
14 January, 2005
A351 Memory Two (Forgotten)
A351 Memory Three (forgotten)
14x11" oil on canvas
Private collection
There are times when an event, an object, a person, or some thing we come across will make us aware of a definite gap or space in our memory, and with a flash of regret, we know we have completely forgotten something. It isn't the kind of forgetting that suddenly awakens at a prompt, reminding us of something tucked away in the back of our minds. Instead, it is a complete erasure, like the blank spot where a tile is missing, or a piece of the jigsaw. Personally, I like to take these blank spots and draw or paint something there, to fill the gap.
Anomaly Series
01 January, 2005
A349 Lightening Six (Sanctuary)
A349 Lightening Six (Sanctuary)
36x30" oil on linen
$850.00
It may be a little premature to bring our character here. She still has a long way to go before enlightenment. But I think she needs a goal, even if it is an imagined one.
Here is a structure of sorts, a place where there is tranquility and some order, but still growth. There is room for more, but a plan is in place.Is there such a place, a Great Union of Themes?
Humans need a quest, need questions to ask. Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going? How (en)lightened do we have to become? Maybe there are only ever-unfolding stages of knowing. Perhaps Sanctuary is only a resting place, before the next great quest.
The work and play of ideas is never-ending.
The next idea is already begun…
Anomaly Series
A348 Lightening Five (Repose)
A348 Lightening Five (Repose)
24x18" oil on linen
private collection
In this painting, the figure reposes, the patterns around her amorphous and changing. The idea is based on the brain’s ability to sift through the day’s events in sleep, sort it, and make sense of it, then file it away. It is as if sleep has formed a protective skin that the outer world and all its chaos cannot enter, but only slide around and past, flowing away, like a tide of detritus.
Anomaly Series
A347 Lightening Four (Force)
A347 Lightening Four (Force)
40x30" oil on canvas$900.00
In this painting, the figure pushes layers of patterns (information, memory) aside to reveal a golden swirling emptiness. A reverse 'copy' of herself appears as a blue flow behind her, as she steps unburdened into the void, her blank canvas, unwritten page.
Anomaly Series
A346 Lightening three (Filament)
Mary Weymark Goss
A346 Lightening three (filament)
40x30" oil on canvas
$900.00
The figure is yielding smoothly to the streams of ideas and information around her, bending to look closely, investigating the beams around her, each different pattern. The feeling is of flow and the 'passive resistance' of the figure.
Return to Anomaly Series Index
A345 Lightening two (Flow)
Mary Weymark Goss
A345 Lightening two (flow)
40x30" oil on canvas
$900.00
This figure has a light flow entering her, probably words or ideas, with a huge triple aura of red on the other side...her own formalised pattern. The background is a blue flow, like water or atmosphere. I added patterns in the blue background, cellular shapes and a few geometric forms, all random.
The strong red auras, iterations of the woman's shape, represent creativity, the heart blood of the artist. It flows out of (behind) the woman, in its refined form, marking her life-way. The yellow influx enters her, light and truth. It too is purified, simplified, refined from the cosmic noise.
The woman herself is reduced to her elemental form, without ornament, unburdened and open to inspiration. It is the moment of creation.
Anomaly Series
A344 Lightening one (Utterance)
Mary Weymark Goss
A344 Lightening one (utterance)
24x18" oil on linen
private collection
I wanted to show a single soul, almost inundated with information and noise, the beautiful clutter of the world. The word flow is the woman's perceptions, formalized in a completely separate stream.
The woman is submerged in her own patterns, a web encasing her, but she speaks out, nevertheless. Her hair falls out of her head, and words stream out of her (or streaming in), all dropping down to enrich her surroundings, to become green growth.
Anomaly Series
A343 Reformation I
A343 Reformation I
24x36" acrylic on acetate
private collection
The reformation sequence is my vision of entropy at work on my own paintings.
Pointillism depicts entropy very well, as the technique in itself is a scattering of bits without contour. The widely dotted bits are more amorphous, but making enough points of colour forms a new, cohesive shape.
This is analogous to the way the artist works. An artist takes an idea, pulls it apart, and reshapes it, again and again. The new 'view' is the artist's perception, a reforming of human experience, a reiteration of what has gone before. Like the stuff of the universe, a work of art is simply recombinant forms of irreducible ideas.
This is a deconstruction of a small portion of A320, Anomalous Piercings. I was interested in how far I could push the image before it was something else entirely. That is a grey area, though, that confounds me through every series. When does a new series begin, or when indeed does a painting end? Sometimes each new idea merges with or continues the old idea so seamlessly, that the transition is almost imperceptible.
Anomaly Series
20 January, 2004
19 January, 2004
18 January, 2004
A340 Memory one (Flux)
A340 Memory (flux)
36x24" oil on canvas
$800.00
This painting is about how flow (inspiration) works, in and out. A cacophony of information and ideas enters the woman’s head, and a single rivulet of pure vision enters her eye, and pours out. The conversion from chaos to clear flow is the artist’s refining process, thinking and working.
The persistence of all those garbage memories we tend to store away, threatens to overwhelm us. You can see that this lady has managed to refine them into a crystal stream pouring steadily from her eyes.
As I worked my way around the figure, I was thinking about the bottom right corner, which is a geometric pattern, as opposed to the organic shapes of the rest of the painting. I added a very anomalous set of green pyramid forms in the lower right, very strange and somehow wonderful.
Anomaly Series
17 January, 2004
16 January, 2004
15 January, 2004
A337 Artist & Anomaly IV
A337 Artist & Anomaly IV
10x8" acrylic on glass
private collection
A pointillist study of an artist friend, France. I wanted to capture the joy and concentration of the artist at work.
Anomaly Series
14 January, 2004
13 January, 2004
A335 History II
A335 History II
16x20" mixed medium on panel
private collection
Another version of the clutter we carry around with us. Our own personal history, all the things we have said and done, swirls around us, sometimes coming into focus, but mostly remaining peripheral until something reminds us. Our history, like Memory, forms a life pattern for each of us, the positive and negative elements changing according to our experience and mood. Kaleidoscope and cacophony, an adornment and a burden; some people cling to their history, while others try to shed it, and don another.
Anomaly Series
09 January, 2004
A326 Reformation V
A326 Reformation V
10x8" oil on glass
Private collection
A pointillist 'reformed' segment of A298, Artist & Anomaly.
Anomaly Series
06 January, 2004
A323 Reformation II
A323 Reformation II
11x14" oil on canvas
private collection
This is an 'alla prima' study of some free-form shapes I made with oil and a large brush. The pointillist details suggest the developmental, biologic forms I am interested in, and are also reminiscent of the Paleozoic fossils in the previous series.
Anomaly Series
04 January, 2004
03 January, 2004
A320 Anomalous Piercings
A320 Anomalous Piercings
20x24" oil on canvas
$550.00
My idea was to show the piercing quality of pain and light, as a riving, but also as inspiration, the bolt that awakens you from inertia and complaisance. As well, lately I have been using the idea of the split person, but only to show how much can be going on at one time, in one mind, and the duality of our nature.
Anomaly Series
01 January, 2004
A318 Sum VII
A318 Sum VII
10x8" acrylic on glass
private collection
The figure juggles several patterns she has formed, while immersed and surrounded by sequences of other patterns. The loose, perception pattern (symbolized by eyes and neurons) of her clothing, the pattern she choses to wear, contrasts with the symmetry of the background patterns. The figure doesn't 'fit in', and certainly the patterned masses she juggles do not blend in. She may be trying to make them fit somehow, or she may be keeping them separate.
Often our ideas, even our ideals, do not fit into the regular pattern of our lives, but we keep them delicately balanced, out there in front of our eyes, to remind us of what we strive to be. If we cling to one idea too long, the others must fall by the way. With concentration, however, we can keep various ideas going, sometimes for a lifetime.
Anomaly Series
29 January, 2003
A317 Sum VI
A317 Sum VI
6x4" oil on board
private collection
The figure has his face turned to the wave patterns, which seem about to penetrate his face. Enough to make his eyes water.
Anomaly Series
28 January, 2003
A316 Sum IV
A316 Sum IV
6x6" acrylic on board
private collection
The figure is surrounded by energy patterns, and turns her face up to 'drink in' the resulting inspiration. It flows through her eyes and her mouth, images and words.
Anomaly Series
27 January, 2003
A315 Sum III
A315 Sum III
10x8" acrylic on canvas
private collection
The figure points to herself, acknowledging her personal reality. Ideas, like iterations of herself, shadow her, waiting to be incorporated (a good word in this sense) or abandoned. What interests me is that we carry ideas around with us, or they attach themselves to us, but we seem to avoid or even try to escape them. It is true that an idea must be embraced or absorbed before it can truly said to be part of our identity. And that identity is the summing up of a lifetime's worth of concepts.
Anomaly Series
26 January, 2003
A314 Sum
A314 Sum
10x8" acrylic on canvas
$65.00 (framed)
A quaint figure in a strange landscape. Ego sum...this room reaching into the outdoors. Most of my paintings twist things inside out and vice versa, or can be seen both ways. Existence, inner and outer.
Anomaly Series
25 January, 2003
A313 Sum II
A313 Sum II
7x5" acrylic on canvas
private collection
I was thinking of the word sum, which means a summing up, but also is Latin for 'I am'. The figure is both supported and partly hidden or submerged by history in the form of a fossil. But the figured is also 'enlightened' by the glowing possibilities of ideas, above.
Anomaly Series
24 January, 2003
A312 Reach VI
A312 Reach VI
7x5" acrylic on canvas
private collection
I was trying to capture the feeling of reaching as far as you can for an idea (reach for the moon), and the heightened senses that mark a state of inspiration. Hence the electrified hair.
Anomaly Series
23 January, 2003
A311 Reach V
A311 Reach V
7x5" acrylic on canvas
private collection
The physical gesture of reaching, of course, draws the two figures together. Their faces almost merge. They are 'eye to eye', connecting.
Anomaly Series
22 January, 2003
A310 Perceive III
A310 Perceive III
5x7" acrylic on canvas
private collection
A simple idea, perception through a sort of mist. But is the idea flowing in or out? And is the idea distorted slightly by the (a priori) fossil shape of personal history?
Anomaly Series
21 January, 2003
A309 Reach IV
A309 Reach IV
6x6" acrylic on canvas
$35.00 (framed)
One figure reaches through 'flow'. I had the idea of feeling your way through ideas, but also of groping around for ways to express them, to share them with someone else. For another person to understand your ideas, you have to pull them into your stream of thought.
Anomaly Series
20 January, 2003
A308 Perceive II
A308 Perceive II
10x8" acrylic on canvas
private collection
Here the figure is reaching out, perceiving even through a dense veil of distraction. The ideas crystallize, dropping steadily.
Anomaly Series
19 January, 2003
A307 Perceive
A307 Perceive
10x8" acrylic on canvas
private collection
Here the figure ponders over her own history, coiled next to her heart, and influencing everything she perceives. Every perception is lined up literally staring at her, eyes strung like a row of beads on an abacus.
Anomaly Series
18 January, 2003
A306 Reach III
A306 Reach III
10x8" acrylic on canvas
private collection
A further exploration of the 'reach' concept. The figure is compelled...her hair is standing up, and the atmosphere is full of energy, lightening bolt patterns. But she has not 'grasped' the idea. A blanket of domestic patterning holds her down. I like the line of hesitation in this one, between the proffered hand and the figure.
Anomaly Series
17 January, 2003
A305 Reach II
A305 Reach II
10x8" acrylic on canvas
private collection
This image, also based on the idea of 'reach', depicts acceptance, of both the reaching-out of another (the hands, obviously not belonging to the figure), and the tears or drops, another way of depicting flow. Flow, if it is to flow freely, must be allowed to run its course, and this includes all ideas, however inappropriate and useless they may seem at the time. The figure accepts the idea (reach) and allows them to emerge unimpeded. This 'emptying' method, provides rich material for creation.
Anomaly Series
16 January, 2003
A304 Reach
A304 Reach
10x8" acrylic on canvas
private collection
I finished A304, and was pleased with it, though wondering whether the hand that is reaching down should have been differentiated more from the other. But I left it the same, since the ambiguity is also appealing; are both hands hers, or is one hand someone else's.
I have been trying to depict how ideas, which almost always appear as anomalies in the fabric of our day, must be reached for. An idea will touch you momentarily, but unless you literally grasp it, the idea vanishes in the complex patterns we surround ourselves with. The watery pattern represents flow, the state of creativity and receptivity.
Anomaly Series
15 January, 2003
P303 History
P303 History
14x11" acrylic on canvas
private collection
This little picture has for its theme history, the idea that we sometimes hold onto our history...here the woman is almost clutching it to her breast.
Paleozoic Series
14 January, 2003
A302 Entropic Woman
A302 Entropic Woman
36x24" oil on canvas
private collection
The patterns on her (Entropic woman) are all writing with a brush, upside down and backwards, etc. A sort of impromptu poem, but it would be very difficult for anyone to decipher. It's not important that you can read it, just that it's there, as all poetry is, except most people don't pause to notice it.
I was intrigued with the idea of entropy, of slow decay. So in the painting, the woman is losing information, bits of herself, data, behind her...but she is also building or adding information in front. She is pushing ahead, always pushing and gathering more information to make up for the loss. An important balance...instead of trying to hold on to old stuff, make new stuff.
In the same sense, ideas flow into us, and flow out of us in the form of our writing and painting. The in-flow is just as important as what comes out, for we are assimilators, translators of what we perceive.
I deliberately made an innocent, amorphous shaped woman; she is clean and glowing, open to new ideas, pushing ahead.
Anomaly Series
13 January, 2003
A301 Dichotomy II
A301 Dichotomy II
20x24" oil on panel
$550.00
At first, beginning to work on the face of the background figure, and continuing the eye' pattern on the arm, I thought it was impossibly ugly. But as usual the combination of soft modelling and colourful patterns are beginning to work together to make an intriguing picture.
I finally settled down to work on a sketch in my sketchbook, and completed a fast under-painting in bright red and yellow, a visage with more zig-zags like lightening bolts. This seemed to warm me up, as I quite enjoyed myself, and I moved over to the table to work on A301 again, completing most of the pattern outlines in black. For this painting, I again tried to contrast the two characters, using geometric angular shapes for the background figure, and floral natural shapes for the front figure. It is hard to tell if the back figure is clutching the front one, or if the front figure is clutching herself, in a sort of protective gesture. It is the ambiguity of the gestures that interests me, because it is how life is. We are never quite sure what we are seeing, how we interpret things. I certainly feel that these chaotic patterns and colours represent our real life, almost overwhelming input of detail all the time, which our brains do an admirable job of filtering, and then the other layer of chaos, the accumulating burden of detail...ideas, events, images and just the things we pick up along the long way of our lives, a great many of them unresolved or perplexing to us, so that we tend in our idle moments to pick through it all, turning things over and over and wondering at them or grieving over them. We move forward, but are continuously glancing back, hence the horrific split; it's a wonder we don't have two heads.
A301 suddenly takes on great significance for me, as the myriad eyes on one character's robe squint and weep, the other character's eye as staring and empty. The clashing patterns are the too-bright world I cringe from, the world that makes my eyes water. The Christmas-coloured flowers of the other robe are my sanctuary. But I have yet to scribble on this painting.
... adding silver lines and another layer of background detail as well as patterns on the arm on the left. This arm is interesting, because it is difficult to make out whether it is the arm of the back figure or the one in the foreground, on the left. One is inclined to associate it with the foreground figure, so I added some of the background pattern to add to the ambiguity. My idea was always that the two figures are really the same person, the dichotomy of being.
It is a strange picture, because of the three arms. With a little imagination, you can attribute all three arms to either figure. I added to this illusion by giving the arms different patterns, not immediately identifiable with either character.
Anomaly Series
12 January, 2003
A300 Artist & Anomaly II
A300 Artist & Anomaly II
24x18" oil pastels, oil, pencils on paper
Private collection
One of the students working at a paint-a-thon at the mall to raise funds for their art class, was gleefully attacking a huge sheet of paper with a big brush and bright colours. There was a wonderful atmosphere of discovery and camaraderie among the artists, young and old. While she and I talked, I made a quick sketch of her at work, and finished it later in the mall studio.
Anomaly Series
11 January, 2003
P299 Dichotomy
P299 Dichotomy
14x10" oil on canvas
private collection
July 20, 2003: I sat in the living room, at the library table and drew a new small canvas, P299, Dichotomy, a continuation of the idea in P297, of deliberate thinking, or structured thinking, and using both sides of an idea, or an argument.
July 29, 2003: When I got home, I finished P299, Dichotomy. What a strange picture it is, the womans face divided by different eyes, different vectors.
Paleozoic Series
10 January, 2003
A298 Artist & Anomaly
A298 Artist & Anomaly
24x18" oil on linen
private collection
In the studio, I worked on A298, Artist and Anomaly. Josée had posed for this at last year's festival, and I had done nothing with it. Now the pose, folded up in a zigzag, and bold figure seems to suit the Anomaly series, above all the expression on her face. Today, with mother colour of Paynes grey and Prussian blue, I drew designs above the thunderbolts I sketched in the other day with pencil, and the bolts themselves I tried in silver oil paint.
When I had worked as much as possible on A301, I turned to A298, Artist and Anomaly, which Josée posed for and has been abandoned for some time. I mainly added black brush patterns, but also had a chance to begin one of the scales, which cover part of her body, using the turquoise oil paint I have favoured lately.
February 13, 2003: I put one of the Gulag Archipelago CD's in the computer, and listened to the droning account of prison life in Russia while squeezing out oil paint. I already have several pictures started; I was able to sit down to A298, Artist and Anomaly, without thinking, and continue the green scale patterns on the character's legs. I worked away, quite happy for an hour or so, and was very pleased with the results.
There are still some details to be done. I have ideas of using a pointed brush to draw all over it, and maybe I will do just that.
February 18, 2004: After breakfast and reading, I went straight upstairs to the studio and, putting on one of the Gulag discs, listened to endless tales of prison life in Stalinist Russia while working on A298. Without hesitation, I began drawing with a pointed brush and black oil on top of the painting, making it what I have been thinking of lately, rather than simply finishing the painting the way it had started. In fact, I can't really remember what my intent was in this picture. It was one of those in-between paintings, the iteration of an idea already established, as often happens in my series. I did not look at the results of my scribbling on top of my painting, just did it, and an hour and a half later, setting the painting right-side up to have a look, I was satisfied, and more importantly, truly engaged once more in this painting.
Anomaly Series
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