Expressionistic Naturalism

The style of painting that I would consider to be most accurate to describe my work is Expressionistic Naturalism.  Expressionist painters are concerned with feelings and the inner workings of the emotions and how this is expressed in art.  Naturalism is considered an artistic movement that seeks to represent an ordinary, everyday reality to convey an artistic or universal thematic message.  Whereas naturalism is a faithful and detailed representation of reality, expressionism becomes the overstated and heightened state of reality that would evoke a powerful human response.

People may say that my style is Impressionistic, and, in many ways, I would not argue this point.  Impressionism did occur between the Naturalistic and Expressionist art movements and does draw from both styles of art.  Historically it was a bridge between two points in history although I feel it was more the pinnacle of landscape painting.  But Impressionism occurred in the late 19th century and cannot occur again because the world has changed so drastically in the last 100-150 years that an artist’s response to the world cannot be the same. Impressionism will always hold a great place of distinction, in my mind, for art history and the freeing of creativity and spontaneity in painting.

It is now the early 21st century and where is art.  During the 20th century various art movements came and went without a true style coming to the forefront.  It seems that 20th century art fragmented into many small pieces without a large piece standing out.  Where are we going in the 21st century?  Will we fragment artistic style even more…some moving towards more abstraction some moving back to realism and all falling short of a great art movement!

My style of Expressionist Naturalism, I believe, brings people back into the real world yet allows us to see the world in a different way.  Through my personal use of color, light, movement, brushstrokes and subject matter my art will convey much more than just the landscape but an unending stream of emotions and feelings.  It begins with the common, universal world and becomes my own rendering of the world around us through my vision, wrought with the joy as well as the angst of life.  Where you paint, when you paint, why you paint, how you paint and even how long you work on a painting all blend differently for each painting.  The result is a unique combination of expressionism within a naturalistic context…Expressionistic Naturalism.