|
The Short View | The Big Picture
This is how to enter this show. Enjoy your time – let me know what you experienced, saw, felt, thought. You can contact me by the link on the show site-navigation (in the Orange area). In God’s Blessing, Jeff LeFever
It was in 1996 that I received my calling, to “Paint Clouds. Put Them In Crosses”. The Project has since then, progressed to this show: CLOUD FORMS divine mystery. Why this title, I will explain in a bit. First it is important to know that I stopped painting personally in my studio for several years. I spent that time developing the Project. I studied, sketched, wrote, and refined the vision so that it became a solid part of my consciousness and my will. The result of the early work is online and can be found at: the Freedom ART Project Online . It is these early studies that serve as thematic blueprints for the paintings to come. Still there was the issue of how I would approach a 30 foot tall by 24 foot wide canvas costing well over $100,000 in material and outside labor alone. This does not allow for mistakes or doubts in the painting process – how would I approach the painting? April of 2002, after more than 4 years away from studio painting, I stepped back into the studio, dedicated to finding my artistic hand, easing into my approach for the first 10 foot prototype painting (scheduled for 2003, the book of Genesis). My goal was to find a voice that spoke with vitality on a visceral level, of the mystery of God and the spiritual. The painting needed to speak with out contrivance, with out sentiment, with out nostalgia. I could experiment with realism or non objective abstraction. My prime painting guideline was that my gestura be of the Cloud Form – in whatever form that would take. Hence the name of the show: “CLOUD FORMS” … In this work, I have resolved my approach to the demands of the Freedom ART Project paintings. With this came a realization that a cloud is not merely an object, but serves to conceal – and yet can be pierced and entered. Of the 150 verses referencing “cloud” in the King James Bible translation, one hundred of those verses represent God’s presence… a cloud, often concealing His FULL Glory from view – a cloud, suggesting mystery in the concealed. As my studio work became more abstract, the paintings became more vital and more mysterious – more engaging. They offered resonance and imaginative interplay - simultaneously. I began seeing these works to represent portraits of our inner spirit – the viewer’s interaction to this, much akin to an intimate personal relationship with another person with whom they had connection - the relationship is vital outside of nostalgia, always changing and evolving to ones mood and point of view, as an intimate relationship evolves. The work has come to represent, not only Divine presence, as in a “cloud”, but our inner human spirit, that mysterium - “made in God’s image” – AND - the mystery that is encountered of the two. Hence the name for the show … “divine mystery” The work is about RELATIONSHIP – evolving, vital, engaging relationship. “Seek and you shall find.” Spend a few moments with each painting – seek into what may not seem familiar – pierce the veil – let them unfold before you as sheets in the wind. These works, this method – when combined with the “blueprints” of the earlier studies, will produce the magnificent paintings of the Freedom ART Project. Enjoy your time here with this show, CLOUD FORMS divine mystery. Take your time with each work. Let me know what you think – what you find – how you feel. I look forward to hearing from you. In God’s Blessing, Jeff LeFever CLOUD FORMS |