Full Circle

William Havu Gallery • Denver, CO

January 2024 - march 2024

Full Circle was a show about being in a place and looking in all directions. A simple enough premise that's had far-reaching implications for me. It's an exploration – set amidst the practice of landscape painting – of the notion that whatever comes our way, if we can turn toward it, we may find out something more about ourselves and that which approaches.

It was made over four and a half years of painting at the same spot - literally; within a few feet on any given day - and turning round. 360°; the four directions. Each painting is a response to a different direction as seen from one of my favorite places, and views, in the world: the vast reach of The Rio Grande del Norte National Monument near my home, Taos, NM.

Deliberately choosing some days to look away from the massively beautiful vista was an act that brought much perspective; instead of the Taos Gorge, I'd find a clump of sagebrush and piñon, or an unbecoming road, or a relatively anonymous horizon. It was consistently a moment of discovery; part of the practice, and purpose, of the show. Standing at the same place through the years and seasons and turning round brought me face to face with that I’d otherwise have missed or ignored. The result was a deeper relationship with the location and the practice of painting it. Looking outward I found questions about who was doing the looking, and about the returning inward gaze; in the sunset's highest highs and deepest darks there was chaos and creation; in the cold vaulted dusk sky there was loneliness and there was homecoming.