Still Life: In Tennessee

“Behind this picture is Matisse who turned to making art with paper cut outs in his older age. I love both the simplicity
and the complexity that these late works bring together. For this piece I cut a thin black paper in the shape of a jar. A light
from outside the frame made an interesting shadow of the cut-out on the left. That arrangement made the right side of the
construction somewhat empty, so I decided then to bring in a shadow projected from a real jar located nearby. Using simple
elements to form more complicated arrangements is a strategy I use often.

There is a quote by Frank Stella that fits here: ‘But, after all, the aim of art is to create space – space that is not compromised
by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.’

The Tennessee in the title is a nod to Wallace Stevens’ poem Anecdote of the Jar reproduced below:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

The title of this show, Ideas of Order, also comes from a Wallace Stevens book of poetry.”