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Rick Stevens Conception Vessel Oil on canvas 32 x 32 inches

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Rick Stevens
contemporary

Artist’s Statement

My work may be seen as an open window to other realms. Its visual vocabulary has evolved from years of painting the landscape. Although I no longer consider myself a landscape painter nature continues to be my muse. I think of nature as a continuous flow of shapes and patterns of energy that has, or more precisely is, an intelligent force. Most modern day physicists will tell us that all the forces and particles in nature are one, just different ripples on the ocean of consciousness: a Unified Field.

While acknowledging a debt to the abstract expressionists I don’t consider myself ‘of that school’. That movement tended to focus our attention upon the work as a thing in itself, identified with the art-process. While I wish to stay true to the modernist idea of process-oriented art, behind my shapes and colors on the picture surface there is always another realm, another order of meaning, however abstract that meaning may be.

A sense of structure is important to me, but I avoid strong divisions. I require a certain ‘fluidity’ where everything is flowing into the next thing. My compositions are infused with an overall light that is all-inclusive. This doesn’t allow anything to be read as separate from the whole. There is diversity, just like in the natural world, but there is an underlying unity that is apparent. I sometimes use preliminary sketches as beginning compositions for paintings and pastels. Much of my process is improvised, allowing the work to evolve organically.