UFO Paintings

In An Ordinary Sky

The UFO paintings are two things at once: a depiction of an encounter with vivid personal depth and they are the encounter itself.  There is an enchanted moment when a painting begins to speak to me about what it wants to become. It’s like feeling the longing of another being, like a hungry puppy, or a plant in desperate need of water. My paintings are in some essential ways, my friends - I am concerned for their well-being. The UFOs first appeared alongside the burning palm trees series, then began to appear in some of the Hudson River climate change pieces. It felt faint at first, then became insistent. The painting needed something, the skies were just too ordinary. These moments feel less like inspiration and more like an itch.The UFO changes everything. It’s just a little grey oval, made from th e oils of plants and minerals, applied on a piece of cotton with a brush made from the hairs of animals. The rest of the painting takes weeks, months, and the UFO takes twenty minutes, but its presence transforms every landscape it touches, because it makes immediate reference to the elusive other that we exist in relation to, that we sense but cannot see directly.