Presence
How I interpret the idea of "presence" in an object is of utmost concern to me. The works in this exhibition at Locust Grove directly addressed the possibility we have to interact with a small discreet painting that was derived from both landscape and botanical information gathered from the extensive family gardens at the Samuel Morse Museum and Historic Estate and the landscape along the Hudson River Valley.
Locust Grove was the nineteenth-century country estate of Samuel Morse who many do not remember as both an artist and the founder of the National Academy of Design. He was, of course, also the inventor of the telegraph and the Morse code. In the twentieth-century the estate was owned by Poughkeepsie's prominent Young family who were collectors of Hudson River School of Art paintings. They also founded the museum. As my work has sustained a dialogue with that school of painting, I thought it appropriate to work with the material there.
I found the photo of the fox standing in broad daylight a field next to my home to be an apt example of a being intensely absorbed in the present-completely and utterly absorbed in the minute changes that occurred around it. Similarly, I seek to engage my viewer in a silent yet rich visual experience.
