Vertical Rhythms - Drip Paintings

Vertical Rhythms is a body of drip paintings I started sometime in the 1990’s. The paintings are a collaboration between control and surrender. I begin with a palette knife, building raised areas across the canvas — interruptions the paint will have to reckon with. Then I drip: one color, then another, watching how they mix and where they're forced to change course. The consistency has to be exact — oil mixed with glykyd and a little thinner — fluid enough to travel, thick enough to leave a record. Then I wait. It dries; I pour again. Weeks pass this way. There's a moment when a painting finally tells me it's resolved — and some never do. The gravity still surprises me!