clay wainscott, b44

Visual art enters the nervous system on different channels than speech, and requires no translation. The movement of art at the time I entered was toward the unique and individual, while I had more interest in what is basic and universal. I begin with a mundane object everyone has seen and filed in their memory, and create an image that resonates against their subconscious expectation, in the manner of a jazz improvisation on a familiar melody.

Over the years I’ve worked for time-clock wages up to product design, all the while maintaining a studio and continuing to paint, with the conviction that one day my work would begin to penetrate the perceptual walls of everyday people. There’s no metaphor, no narrative, no literary content of any kind, just the first line of a conversation without words.

My approach to acrylic has been exploratory, and may have been influenced by early screenprint experience. Single primary colors are reduced to transparency and applied in layers, with secondary colors mixing on the canvas, back to front. Foundations are studio-built.