Art making for me can best be described through the language of abstraction. With both imagery and titling, I make use of various representational elements, but endeavor to avoid a direct reading. I purposely seek to make work that remains elusive and resistant to any single interpretation. I work toward the discovery of tension points when a picture can be read simultaneously with both subject and process in (more or less) equal measure.

Occasionally, I re-examine my interest in the seductive pull of nature through the language of flowers. My approach is implied--both literal and abstract. This image, (from the Puff Piece edition, number 2 of 25 unique images and color ways), made with stone lithography, zinc plate blind embossment and carved rubber stamp prints, is about shaping gestures of light and pigment into a consideration for the multitude meanings of a bouquet -- congratulations, sympathy, gratitude, love.

Girasol, the enduring motif of sunflowers, is a golden face seeking the sun. In this work, nature’s allure is captured but resides within a delicate tension: the way forms suggest abundance even as they hint at impermanence, the way color vibrates between exuberance and restraint. Girasol-- the literal meaning “turn toward the sun,” is a metaphor for reaching -- something just out of grasp. Abstracting the sunflower, I offer an investigation of what is seen and what is felt—to sense the hypnotic rhythms of nature without the filter of literal depiction. The language of flowers is, after all, a silent one—full of suggestion, of meanings half-spoken. Through abstraction, I hope to open a space for contemplation: a moment where the charismatic pull of nature can be felt as presence, as possibility, as a call to see beyond the surface of things.

To learn more:
carol-reed.com