In his 1967 text ‘The Secrets of Ancient Geometry’, Danish author, Tons Brunes revealed the hidden mathematical truths found in ancient human creations such as the Egyptian pyramids the Grecian temples and remarkably the proportions of the curtains covering the Jewish tabernacle described in the book of Exodus.  Each curtain was composed of five strips of cloth one unit wide and seven units long.  When placed in an overlapping form they reveal a method of finding geometric forms in a variety of proportions, such as circles or squares half or twice in area, squares that are 20% larger than a given square or finding a straight line equal in length to the quarter circumference of a circle.

Playing upon the mystery of the hidden text of a palimpsest and the insecurity born of ill-resolved form lacking language or theory, this series of paintings  explores some of the relationships found within those curtains.

These three works are entitled “Art is Not About Words”.  Although they play with some of the same mathematical elements of the previous works, they address that place without words, where visual noise and even some confusion hinder the acquisition or resolution of an idea.

Art comes from a place without words.  You may have been there yourself, trying to figure out how something works, trying in your mind to fathom relationships between things or the mechanics of how something works.  It is like a meditative state where the words that explain things or even name things drop away.  I am left with internal images that can turn, tumble and join and then disappear at the mere thought of a word.  Joseph Campbell called this mental state living in eternity, for it is a space without time as well.  Sometimes, the artist in his studio can work in a space without words and time.  What I am left with in those moments is a direct connection to the work, the tool box of my personal technical abilities and my emotions.  Architect, Philip Johnson once said when asked to describe his experience while viewing the Bilbao, Guggenheim by Frank Gehry, that “Art is not about words.  It is about tears and joy, tears and joy.”