My painting, Post-Expressionist Scream, Acrylic on Canvas.

I’ve been getting very little sleep lately. I seem to be waking up around two in the morning and my brain starts swimming. Not in a bad way though. I feel very inspired. I’ve been listening to a lot of Coltrane and Miles Davis lately. Been thinking about artistic genres, specifically expressionism, minimalism and their neo evolutions. How they react to one another. Artistic yin and yang. How expressionism is based on raw emotion and decipherable, often violent abstract forms; while minimalism relies on structure and repetition to communicate its messages. Coltrane’s later works are considered expressionistic, based on their atonal and modal qualities. I find it interesting that expressionists are often considered spiritually oriented. Though I definitely consider my art to be expressionistic, or neo-expressionistic, I’ve been thinking much about the intersection of both. I call it expressionistic minimalism.

I was talking with my friend, Mike, the other day about his best friend, an undertaker. I was asking where his friend gets his depth, because the guy is obviously a deep thinker and unique being. I don’t know him personally, but gather it well from the stories Mike tells. The way it plays is this guy, having the opportunity to see people in their perhaps most vulnerable state—death—he’s able to connect backwards with their lives. He is their final escort from this chapter. He is the ascender. Or, at least, the ascension attender. Being in this family business for five generations, I imagine the depth that comes from pondering life and death is culturally familial to him.

Ascension is concept well loved by both expressionists and minimalists. One of Coltrane’s most revered works is titled Ascension, as is one of the most revered works by minimalist sculptor, Eva Hesse. Mike just introduced me to Hesse the other day, the same day we spoke about his best friend the undertaker. Another artist, a favorite of mine, Jonathan Borofsky, is well know for two outdoor installations entitled “Ascending Man,” and “Ascending Woman.” These installations feature a man figure and a woman figure, respectively, appearing to walk a tight rope (wire?) that seems to be extending up past the tops of tall buildings to the heavens.

I definitely would call Borofsky an expressionistic minimalist. After throwing my conversation with Mike the other day into my internal blender, I’ve been thinking about “cutting apart” some of my previous expressionistic paintings, perhaps as an undertaker would, revealing the life from which it came, and repainting them as individual elements, each on its own canvas. Maybe I’ll repeat some of these shapes over and over in a structured form in order to give birth to my own expressionistic minimalism.

My painting, Stomach, Acrylic on Canvas.