Don Gray paintings

Fine art still-life casein paintings. "This painting of a vase of flowers, part of the background fabric, makes it seem literally a real bouquet sprouting from the cabbage like a fountain of life, growth, nature’s energy. Again, there is a centering composition, with apples and lemons satellites of the cabbage. Like other still-lifes on this site with a large golden melon, for example, the cabbage is the dominant form and source of meaning, power and focus in the painting. It is somewhat reminiscent of the ‘philosopher’s stone’ Carl Jung speaks of, a final awareness of, and convergence upon, the rock of meaning at the core of existence. Needless to say, I had no such thoughts when setting up and painting this still-life. It is a work based entirely on instinct and a desire for these given objects. Only after an artwork is completed, do I see what I have done in terms of aesthetics and content. For me, instinct-based, rather than intellect-based, art is by its nature more true to the deepest levels of human feeling and experience. Intellect-based art can be dry and theoretically detached, subject to the superficial cleverness of the mind, but detached from the deeper expressive levels that give ultimate meaning to art."