Brother's Bison

Expressionistic “Brother’s Bison” depicts a bold attitude with vibrant colors and is set in an imaginary plains landscape with an approaching storm. The two brothers stand they’re ground toward the viewer. This canvas before it became a finished painting, was rescued by a fireman shortly before my studio burned to the ground. More on that in a minute. A lot of my painting ideas develop during the painting process, pushing paint around as I reflect on what I want to say. I had recently decided that I wanted to develop what I was seeing in the early abstraction into a bison in order to reflect the animals strength and spirituality, as well as pay homage to my home state of Oklahoma. In order to achieve that goal, I decided it would be better to completely cover the canvas with gesso again so my colors could be more saturated and be applied more directly. At this stage it was a large white canvas with texture from the underpainting of various shapes resembling a bison. This is where I pick back up with the firefighter story. I find it more than odd that the fireman chose this canvas to rescue out of the hundreds of other finished paintings stacked in my painting rack. He saved the one canvas that was blank. Well, that was a very good reason to finish the painting. It was probably a year later when my new studio was rebuilt. That’s when I took on the challenge to pick up where I left off. Obviously, the idea grew into two bisons instead of one, and new ideas emerged about experience and wisdom versus youth and brashness. This is one of many stories told by my paintings.