Line Shape Colors =  Motionless Movement

Color changed the conversation. The ideas behind Motionless Movement did not disappear when I began working more extensively with pastel and oil paint. They simply found another way to move. In the charcoal drawings, much of the movement comes from line, value, light, shadow, and edges that appear and disappear. In the torn paper work, the physical edge of the paper becomes part of that movement. With these paintings, color enters the mix. I use color much the same way I use line and value. One color pushes against another. Warm areas move forward while cooler passages fall back. A figure can emerge from a field of color and then begin to disappear into it again. The spaces between forms become just as important as the forms themselves. I am not particularly interested in using color simply to make an image more attractive. Color has work to do. Sometimes it creates harmony. Sometimes it disturbs it. Colors can sit comfortably beside one another or push hard against each other. Much like the light and dark passages in the charcoal drawings, that tension keeps the surface active. The figures may remain still, but color moves around them, through them, and sometimes seems to carry them with it. The materials have changed, but the idea remains the same. The image does not have to physically move for the eye to feel movement.