The initial problem I established for myself, as an abstract painter, was how to elevate abstraction to a level of intellectual inquiry while remaining true to the visual nature of painting. I have said that my work is literally just what it is. Beside the argument to provoke discussion about painting, an intellectual challenge to painting implies a focus on sets of relationships that visually structure a painting. Painting always carries a push/pull between its two-dimensional space and its object hood, illusion therefore employs an openness that painting cannot escape. The fact that painting is highly illusionistic endears painting with a lyrical quality, where the materiality of contemporary ideals and the physical property of the medium coalesce into meaning. I choose the word sublime to describe the transcendence of materiality towards higher forms of expression.
In the work of Series Settlement, Desio and again In SHIFT, the visual plane is a kind of unified field held together by form and scale where the relationships of color, form and surface explore the delicate and severe balance between paintings competing elements. The visual plane is shallow with a focus on color density, opacity and finish. For the objects in SHIFT, visual tension is the key element,the sum of the relationships that hold a painting together visually. In Settlement, Desio, Shift and currently Cross Point, I again consider abstraction as a form that carries a meditative ambiance through the materiality of wood and a muted physiology of color. The work has been referred to as having a "sound free ambiance devoid of personal expression" that I liken to the Japanese concept of balance through perfect imperfection. The work approaches an understanding of the tension that exists in the idea of balance, or rather equipoise, a dance where the competitive visual elements balance with a slightly off quality that works formally.
Steve Karlik, 2010
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