in moments of justice there are always conflicts 2019

A painting portrays our inner worlds and our relationship to the world around us, and to each other, whether they portray representations of things and events seen, narratives about these, or  patterns in the materials and processes that compose them.  As Karl Ove Knausgaard points out, works of art do this through concrete and precise depictions of a person standing, a hand pouring from a pitcher, a landscape of a tree and a hill, or a line of a certain color on a grayish ochre surface.  And these precise events evoke the inexhaustible nature of our relationships to the world around us, to our complex—though sometimes straightforward—desires to see our selves recognized in it.  This is true in works ranging from the prints of Utagawa Hiroshige, to the works in various media of Anselm Kiefer, to Nok suclptures of a group of people or a man sitting resting his chin on his knee, to the patterns of weavings from Ghana, the material movement and weight of El Anatsui’s sculptures, the specific narratives implied and shown in the images of Lorna Simpson, Australian Aboriginal patterns that trace the connections and movements of people across their lands, and to the choreographed locations of color and bodily contact to the physical world in the works of artists like Donna Huanca, John Walker, or Chitra Ganesh.  The list expansively goes on.  It includes expressions of tragedy, conflict, and injustice, as well as exuberance and inexhaustible translations of our shared experiences.

(Further reference: Knausgaard, "Inexhaustible Precision:" https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/inexhaustible-precision/