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In CONVERGENCE, an extended series of the acrylic paintings on canvas and board, nonobjective abstraction and representational landscape merge and intersect. Two major divergent historical approaches in painting converge.
New perceptions and associations derive from combining these two formidable visual forces. The idioms often form an unexpectedly satisfying equilibrium. In other instances, polarity creates tension between the diverse approaches.
For centuries landscape served a secondary role in religious and historical painting. In the work of 19th century artists such as John Constable and J.M.W. Turner, landscapes in painting increasingly becomes a distinct subject unto itself. Landscape as primary content becomes firmly established in painting through the French Barbizon and Impressionist painters in the mid-to-late 1800’s.
Modernist Abstraction, a vigorous and sweeping 20th century idiom can be understood advancing to its nonobjective origins in Cubism and Futurism. Then progressing through Suprematism, Constructivism, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Abstraction’s many variations range from the intellectually rigorous to the ethereal and mystical. I gladly borrow freely from the expansive breadth of Modernism’s past.
The series CONVERGENCE was initiated in 2003 and I continue its development. It is a fertile and compelling challenge to use distinct traditions in new ways. Juxtaposition and convergence generate results that are visually and conceptually powerful, lyrical, subtle, restrained or flamboyant. As disparate forms converge, exciting and surprising results emerge.
A Professor of Art Emeritus at the State University of New York at Oswego my studio is located in Fair Haven, New York.
Although CONVERGENCE has not yet been exhibited, I look forward to showing selected examples of the forty painting series in the near future. Previous solo exhibitions of my work, include venues in New York, Chicago, Buffalo, Rochester, Minneapolis and Toronto, A traveling exhibition, Paul Garland: Large Format Watercolors opened at the Everson Museum in Syracuse before traveling to five other locations including Purdue University and the University of North Dakota.