The idea underlying this work comes from the use of spectroscopy to examine light from distant stars or galaxies to determine whether the star or galaxy is moving away or towards us and how fast. I always thought that was a beautiful idea: that one could look at an object’s color to make such determinations. I wondered if a color signature could be arrived at for a more familiar object, place or person. If so, what would we be able to determine about that subject merely by an examination of the sequence of its light?

In the Sequence paintings, I take a digital image and use a program to analyze the image for the sequence of its color. I break the image down into about 800 lines of color, which I call its “signature.” Once I have a source image that I find interesting, I execute the image by hand using an airbrush onto an aluminum panel. I use a familiar language, the set of colors found within the subject, to describe the subject, but the manner in which the colors are regenerated provides a different structure, a different grammar. I sequence the subject as an event taking place at a certain time and place, the colors of which will never be replicated again.
This is where the Sequence paintings begin.

Click here for an illustration of the process for the Eye Sequence paintings.

See a movie of the process.