| I am compelled to explore the bounded, yet infinite depth of the picture plane. I find the territory within the second dimension to be paradoxical, especially since paint is just a physical substance without form. The same set of physical forces that holds paint to the canvas also binds us to the planet, and gives movement to the tectonic plates that formed the continents. In a painting, there is an added dimension of timelessness. By definition, the second dimension is timeless, having height and width, but no real physical depth. Painting tends to be illusory, relatively free of time and distance. Without distance, there can be no time, only the now. |  |
EJay Weiss
I am compelled to explore the bounded, yet infinite depth of the picture plane. I find the territory within the second dimension to be paradoxical, especially since paint is just a physical substance without form. The same set of physical forces that holds paint to the canvas also binds us to the planet, and gives movement to the tectonic plates that formed the continents. In a painting, there is an added dimension of timelessness. By definition, the second dimension is timeless, having height and width, but no real physical depth. Painting tends to be illusory, relatively free of time and distance. Without distance, there can be no time, only the now. Einstein pointed out space/time bends and is a continuum. Time requires fixing a point in space, in order to measure it. Where we “enter” or “exit” a painting is relative, as we tend to see a painting at once, as a singularity, or as a unified field.
Painting represents a multilayered process of viewing inward, outward, or otherwise. The metaphysics of this process substantiates the visual poetry that results in all great painting, no matter what period or style of painting we are referring to. Some 35,000 years ago the Paleolithic cave painters of Lascaux, France, produced masterpieces that rival Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling in imagination, breadth of imagery, form, and color.
What unfolds within the field of the painting provides a mirror to nature, which we didn’t create. But we do create art to reflect both nature and ourselves. My paintings express what is a seemingly natural and organic order. The canvas provides me with a grounded space in which an evolutionary process in paint occurs. What evolves is the geological structure of the painting itself, as an event, which tends to bend and transcend the visual limits of time and space back into its original matrix. Each painting evolves in its own spatial dimension, a bounded and infinite reflection of the way our own world is paradoxical: complete, beautiful, harmonious, yet continuously unfolding before us. These recent seascapes exemplify the process I have outlined here.
For more information, e-mail EJay Weiss at weissejay@netzero.net.
