ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Harry Walton Boone
My oeuvre has been steadfastly centered on nature –
an expanded view of nature, that is. Adopting a Postmodern paradigm, I hold that nature contains more than just those
things commonly associated with it (e.g., animals, landscape, water, etc.) Nature includes the human being as well, and all those things related to
him/her. Rather than viewing nature as a separate entity to be witnessed, we invent nature and thus, ourselves. Put another way, I experience painting as a
binary process: in looking through a “window” I begin to look into a mirror.
In essence, what I hope my audience experiences are the various states–of-being that these encounters
with nature reveal. In these paintings, I don’t render that which I see or imagine “realistically” but, through a process of abstraction with a primary focus on color, I attempt to distill those elements in my vision and imagination to the essential qualities that I feel most express myself in nature.
One aspect of nature I have been grappling with for the past few years
is entropy. As such, my paintings have
focused on decline witnessed in nature and experienced in the physical human
self. Some of these deal with the
process of aging and various levels of limitation. Others have dealt more directly with death
itself – these I call “Nature Mort Paintings”. For these paintings I have experimented with a
variety of media to include gold leaf, chalk, collage elements in addition to
oil pigment and have used steel and aluminum plating in some cases as
supports. The paintings about decline
and death are both
personal reactions to my own dealings with death, deterioration, and handicaps.
These images might be somewhat disturbing for some, but they are not supposed
to be wholly grim. Rather, I have tried
to offer an aesthetic context for considering this subject matter in which
something positive can be gleaned.
Most recently I have developed work that represents a shift away from my
focus on entropy. Those images, particularly
those dealing with human limitation, required a more intense or tighter manner
of image making. While I have not
exhausted the genre, I felt an overwhelming need to loosen up and return to a
more painterly approach. Perhaps due to
a fortuitous turn in personal circumstances I have explored coastal environs as
subject matter (something I began many years ago) that reflects a more hopeful
mood. For these paintings I make extensive
use of palette knives supplemented by brushes where needed. As in all my paintings my intent is to
distill human experience – even that which cannot be literally seen.
