"Madre Owl" is an original pastel painting. It is one of a series of mythological owl paintings that I made in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is matted in a 3" matt that is a pale peach color. The frame is a metal slat frame of the same color. The image size is 20" by 28"
ARTIST STATEMENT updated April 2008I've been an artist all my life. Today I'm primarily an abstract painter and identify with the abstract expressionists. Objective reality inspires me to create. However, I have no interest in making a picture of a person, place or thing that already exists. My interest is to bring something new to the world. A fresh unique being not necessarily related to anyone or anything that came before it. Art making is a birthing process. The newborn, the work of art, is an entity to be with and get to know. To enjoy and learn from. Great art breathes. It's alive. Forever giving. There's nothing more fulfilling than creating something from nothing. My unrelenting and most fervent desire is to know, to understand and to live the "becoming" experience. This happens when I paint. This is why I make art. Pure joy. Painting makes life make sense. As a visual artist, I'm most excited by color and paint and the surprises that happen during the process. Pastels are a favorite medium because I like "painting" with my fingers - pushing around the pastel dust. Hundreds of pastel sticks surround me as I work. It's quick, direct and easy to use outdoors. No need for brushes, water, or mixing - I just grab the color I need. Lately I've been painting with acrylics on 3' by 4' canvas. I love paint. It teases my sense of touch so I end up painting with my fingers as much as with brushes. The fluidity makes it quick and changeable. Paint seems to have a mind of its own - a mysterious life force that activates and combines innate properties resulting in the unexpected. That's a big attraction for me. Standing before a blank canvas surrounded by my tools and colors, I begin to journey. A seed thought is my springboard - a spark that gets me going. Once begun, the process generates itself. It's as though a great mystical being flows through me onto canvas. I never feel alone while painting. I sense invisible helpers as I glide along the fine thread of awareness between control and reckless abandon. I'm both the doer and the witness. Totally in the moment, yet anticipating every move - sometimes, several moves ahead. I'm open to all impressions, impulses, recollections as I quickly, but gently, choose what to use and what to let go. It's a mystical time teeming with coexisting opposites. Complex, because every level of awareness is lively in a single moment. Simple, because it seems thought-free - automatic. My focused attention is like the pin-point of a laser beam. Yet I feel expanded as I float in the loving stillness of waves moving over, around and through me. Painting is a non-linear, non-discursive language that wakes up all realms of consciousness. It prompts and allows multiple expressions in one single stroke. Isn't that amazing? Just thinking about it gets me going... So this is the way I paint and the only kind of art making process I'm interested in doing. RESUME: http://jerifelixresume2008.blogspot.com/
