The reasons why I made this painting are varied. First, the human face and head are probably my favorite subject matter, and I love distorting elements of their structure and mass while retaining a relatively natural color scheme. Also, I am interested in the idea of one element springing forth unintended from a prior element -- an original idea begetting a new idea, the unintended consequences of a particular action, one person having descended from another.
Like much of my painting, "Fissure" was made in sort of an organic way. Rather than beginning with detailed preparatory drawings, I start a lot of these by allowing a smear of very-thinned paint of various colors to dry out on whatever painting surface I happen to be working on. Carefully studying what I have in front of me, I then use the shapes of the dried paint as the starting point for the different elements of what will become the finished image. When I start these, I sometimes have a vague idea of the shape of the image I want, the basic compositional structure, or some kind of fuzzy notion of what (if anything) I want the picture to be about. Most often, the image I end up with looks quite different than whatever idea I had when I started.
