These paintings like the works seen in the Print Gallery are from a series of works created during the last decade, inspired by a summer spent in Italy where I was invited to participate in the University of Georgia's Studies Abroad Program in Cortona. The great art work of the Etruscian and Roman periods and the Renaissance left a profound impact on my mind of course and inspired me to paint again after a 12 year hiatus, the lasting human experience, the one that influenced me most, was the way I began to look at and absorb the minutiae and human relationships of my immediate environment. When I returned home I began to look for a similar experience in my home environment and found it right outside of my back door.
To understand that statement it is necessary to to carry in the mind a picture of the Italian piazza - a large outdoor living room of sorts where people meet for coffee or vino in the afternoon or evening to discuss the news, the merits of the day, or if they are artists to argue the subtilities of their aesthetic philosophies.
There is nothing quite comparable in the United States but the little patio outside my door seemed to offer itself, at least metaphorically. The intense sunlight of Italy and Florida are quite similar, creating strong shadows and offering strong abstract shapes to create formal compositions. The furniture in the piazza, as on the patio is often moved into a configuration reflecting the nature of a conversation and left that way after it's occupants have gone leaving behind the residue of a quiet reflective moment, a tender lover's embrace or an an intense debate. It is this residue of feeling that I have attempted to capture in these works.
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