What appears realistic is a symphony of broken color and mannerly brush work.

Close-up of the eye from “The Longshoreman” (below) looks photo realistic from a distance. But up close its a symphony of broken color.

“Looks like a photograph”

Many people tell me paintings look like a photograph. While I know this is meant as a compliment, I would like to make the case that my work as painter is far deeper than a mere photograph, with apologies to fine art photographers everywhere. I think what they are really trying to say is they admire the detail and accuracy of my paintings. But I don’t think of my work as photographic or photorealistic. Hyperrealism and Superrealism are terms that refer to a realistic painting style which is even more intensely detailed than photorealism, more “finished.” One can be accurate without being photorealistic, as you many notice in the “realistic” depiction of an eye on the right. The idea of “finish” has a fluid meaning.

Mannerly

My work is not any of these because of my use of broken color to create the illusion of intense reality. Another common term used in describing my work is mannerly, a sexist word referring to the unfettered brush work one often sees in my paintings. I prefer this way of working because, for me, it preserves a certain level of artistic integrity, the “backbone” of the artwork. And because it is simply more interesting to me, as the viewer can appreciate the work far away AND close up, enjoying a different experience depending on their proximity.

The Longshoreman

Broken Color

Close up, one can see and appreciate how I have created the illusion of great detail using broken color, which is a combination of abstract shapes and colors that combine in the viewers retina to produce the illusion of great detail in the mind. Farther away they can marvel at how it comes together to appear “realer than real,” as an eight year old girl once described my work. I call this style “expressive realism.” I never paint things, only their component lines, shapes, forms, colors, values, space, and textures ( the visual elements). In this way, I call upon the viewer’s imagination to assemble my marks of broken color in their mind, which they do on an almost unconscious, intuitive level.

Gratitude

Since our early days as a species, the human brain has learned to recognize patterns that add up to possible sources of food, shelter, sex and safety. We are naturally drawn to these shapes and patterns. So in a way, my style triggers these primal responses in the viewer.

An Unbroken Line

The method I use to transfer what see into this exquisite brand of broken color was devised by Frank Reilly, who quantified the processes of Cezanne, Sargent, Velasquez and others into a tangible way of seeing and interpreting nature in the way I’ve just described. When people refer to my style, they refer to it as expressive realism, because my painting expresses the form, rather than simply copying it. Very few people know how to do this because this knowledge was lost during the sixties into the early nineties. People again began taking realism seriously in the nineties. But this concept of broken color is lost on most realists working today. Mine and my father’s work formed a direct link back to the masters that was broken when the Avant Garde pushed realism to the sidelines. Fortunately, now contemporary realism holds its own against abstraction and the other modern movements. 

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