Any visual medium is acceptable (photographs, paintings, prints, drawings, 3D etc.) Send an image or two along with title, medium, your name and Diamond group to: alexis@alexisstjohn.com. This is not a juried show; all artists who submit will be represented in next month’s newsletter.
In Memory of David Carter
David was scheduled to be the featured artist for the January issue. Sadly, David passed away suddenly on January 9th. He had expressed enthusiasm about being interviewed for the DAG newsletter, and had sent me the written information, but we did not get the chance to spend time together in the follow-up Zoom chat we had arranged.
At first, I wasn’t sure about whether or not to publish this interview. Ultimately I decided it seemed fitting to share his words and artistic vision with fellow Diamond Approach artists.
David was excited about his latest work, the prism paintings. It’s hard to capture in 2D what he’s created. I’ve included stills as well as video, but I recommend readers go to his website and YouTube channel to watch the videos. They are quite mesmerizing.
~Alexis
Artist Interview
group: DHR 123 David was a Diamond Approach teacher in the Pacific Northwest. He was in the work for 21 years.
Q: Tell us a little about your medium, style of work, process.
I work with mixed media, including acrylic paint, spray paint, Plexiglass and archival papers. My style is in the lineage of geometric abstractions and in many ways influenced by minimalism and the California Light and Space movement.
Mendenhall, 35” x 45”
Q: How is your work influenced by the Diamond Approach?
My work is usually reflective of my inner working edge. And although this is not often conscious while I am at work, following a piece’s completion, upon reflection, I usually discover this to be the case. I recall with a former body of work where I was experimenting with a way to paint where the color delineations were a combination of the blending of colors and isolated color.
This body of work illustrated flow, movement and expansion as well as boundaries and containment. Though not immediately apparent to me, this whole body of work was exemplary of my ongoing thread of inquiry having to do with the continuum of functional boundaries to boundlessness as it shows up in various dimensions.
Mirabella, 49.75” x 49.75”
My work is an extension of inquiry, but in more subtle and often nonverbal ways. I spend a lot of my time in the studio engaging in experimentation; open-ended experimentation, similar to the way we inquire without an aim. It is within this process where creative dynamism often arises and new ways of expressing emerge.
Currently, I am working on a body of work where the expression is centered around a more pure form of blending color. This body of work is called prism paintings. Through the process of experimentation and a perfect accident, I discovered a way to paint with light itself. It’s an exhilarating process of working that is often unpredictable, yielding many surprises. Upon completion these pieces appear to be two dimensional, but as the viewer approaches them the magic happens. The colors and shapes begin to morph and change depending on the viewers visual perspective. They invite the quality of curiosity (What am I seeing?) and (How is this possible?).
Prism painting series: Accordance, 48” x 48”
Prism painting series: Clysmic, 58.25” x 61.5”
Prism painting series: Paradox, 48” x 62”
Prism painting series: Paradox, 48” x 62”
It is always a pleasure for me to witness someone seeing these pieces for the first time with innocent eyes. They beckon you to move around them and to interact with them. They invoke a dialectic of sorts. If you can suspend the need to know what you are seeing and simply let yourself be moved and taken in by the changing color and the movement of light, these pieces can ignite in you the recognition that this exquisite unbounded and dynamic pure light is in fact who you are.
