Transformation with Color
My polychrome work is predominately Symbolist, Expressionist, and Synthetist. It is not Realist.
It is Synthetist in the sense of a breakdown in the "natural" appearance of things in order to allow a re-combination of my own choosing. As Maurice Denis said: Remember that a picture before being a war horse, a nude, or some sort of anecdote is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order ... for the pleasure of the eye.
It is Expressionist in the use of color in a seemingly arbitrary way to convey emotional meanings and ideas as opposed to color that is descriptive. As Gauguin said: Don't paint too much from Nature. Art is an abstraction. Derive it from Nature by meditation.
It is Symbolist in the impulse to present each image as a transformation, a caricature, or an equivalent of some important internal archetype, image, myth, or symbol—in other words, a "forest of symbols."
Nature is a temple whose living pillars
Let indistinct words come forth
There man passes through forests of symbols
That watch him with familiar eyes.
Like long-drawn echoes from afar
Blend into deep shadowy unity,
Vast as darkness and light,
Scents, colors, and sounds answer one another.
By Charles Baudelaire
Transformation of Glass
Glass is the embodiment of transformation. Its own existence is the result of a radical re-forming of base substances that resembles none of its ancestors. As light passes through glass, a further transformation occurs in both color and form. The result is a magical transmutation of the essence of matter.
Glass can survive for eons or be shattered in a moment. It exists as a molten liquid that becomes a shiny and transparent/translucent solid.
Glass begins as stone that has been changed into sand by a journey through nature (rivers, the ocean, glacier movement). The sand is melted by fire with the aid of ash, which is derived from burning plants. Glass formation also needs lime, made from crushed rock. Thus, the "death" of some substances results in the birth of another. In the case of glass blowing, the very breath of man is added to the alchemical mixture.