Wet Spot

See Alan Bray’s work in WTP Vol. VI #1

It is among the intricate structures of phenomena that I look for an innate order of things. It is the branching pattern of trees, the drifting of snow, the meanders of flowing water, the swaying of grass in the wind, or the conjoining of ripples on the surface of a pond that imparts to a place and a time its particularity. To become a vital part of that particularity is to achieve familiarity, an intimacy and affection that serves to reorder the experience of a place. When I slow down and give myself up to a place or a phenomena, it is to enter into a reductive state where all incidental details are eliminated and what appears to be chaos is organized into pattern.”

Alan Bray paints in casein, a milk-based tempera that has virtually no drying time. Necessarily, his paintings are technically complex because they consist of thousands of tiny brush strokes, built up in layers, out of which the images—the vision—advance from the foundation of a mirror-smooth, absolute void of white ground. It is a method of painting that follows directly from his method of exploring his subjects.

Images courtesy of the Garvey|Simon Gallery.