The Mirror
I’ve really come to enjoy the fluid nature of making these paintings. All the parts are free until the work is fused in the kiln. I push the pieces around like refrigerator magnet poems. So in a way they function as collages. The Matisse cut-outs come to mind. No struggle, no hand in the work. A series of simple gestures. Everything sits in the picture plane. Nothing feels “captured”, caught in the act. There’s a lifted quality to the elements in that work that I find appealing. Placed together. I’m still coming to terms with this gesture of placing. I don’t know how to talk about it yet without sounding naive or stoned. The task in these works is finding a place for all of the parts. It’s a singular act, placing the glass, raw and elemental. Mind, eye, hand. It isn’t planned or reworked. No mediating tools. No ritual, other than coffee and music. But there are rehearsals. Most nights in the studio I just push pieces around. - David Hendren