Blog
Posted on 4/8/2009
By Donald Fox
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For many years in my painting I have focused on landscape imagery through which I have explored fundamental interactions between color, shape, and form as related to perceived contrast between light and dark. Specific subjects have always included places physically visited: Texas, Arizona, California, North and South Carolina and other southern states, Mexico, and several European countries. More recently I’ve begun a series of paintings investigating the human element within its self-created landscape. I have a longstanding interest in literature, studied literature as an undergraduate and graduate student, and have taught English and writing for a number of years. I’ve also published poems, essays, and stories. This interest, along with concern over the many challenges facing contemporary society, has led me to the new series that overall is called Urban Dwellers. Several sub-series present certain thematic elements that serve as metaphorical representations of contrasting elements. Two of these series, Readers and Street People, are of immediate concern and are represented by examples on this website. Life is contrast; one thing dies to sustain the life of another. Energy is released and recycled in this constant transformational process. We are part of this process and contribute to it consciously and unconsciously every moment of every day, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. We can call this the human condition, the process of life, the way of nature, the state of the universe, or God’s plan. At some level all art touches on this inevitability, embracing it or attempting to deny it. I mention this here because, ultimately, this is what fuels my art. My paintings, whether landscape, figurative, or whatever, metaphorically represent the dynamic, transient, transformational, numinous, ethereal, perplexing, mysterious experience we call life.
