PHILIP VAUGHAN

ABSTRACT 2+2

On Exhibit thru August 27, 2020

ARTIST STATEMENT

Abstraction, Vita Art center 2022

Abstraction to me means “taken from”, “extracted” – in my case often from nature. I have always been interested in the idea that art is the process of examining and sifting – dimensional space, the environment but also emotions, observations, intuitions, finding their essence and in the process making a kind of record of that investigation. My goal is a search for a kind of buried truth and the hope is that somewhere in there, there will be a commonality about it that will resonate with others. Somehow man still sees him or herself through the mirror of nature. We see ourselves as being part of it, we gauge ourselves against it, the light, the wind, correctly I think, yet we city dwellers live in a world that is largely man-made these days. The source material of these paintings lies in a field of wheat in France, a shimmer on the water, the cathedral that is the Amazonian jungle, they share a visual energy and an emotional impact on myself. I am interested in the notions that through examination and looking carefully at things and thinking about them, we can detect some of the mysteries of what surrounds us. I try to look for resonance, for connections, for ways that let the light in. There is so much darkness around us, it’s our job to seek ways that we can confront that through a search for an internally sourced truth, using color, light and rhythm.

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