Nagoya Catalog
Artist's StatementThe body of paintings before this one was portraits done from life in which I tried to capture a measure of the sitter's psychology and presence. This series began in the Spring of 1996 when I returned to my hometown of Port Arthur, Texas to help care for my father as he died of cancer. I had lost my youngest brother a year earlier. Experiencing the intimacy involved in caring for my father, the reunion of our family, and these two deaths caused me to want to paint about my family and greatly influenced what emerged. The first of these paintings were small watercolors done on my father's kitchen table at night. From there the work moved to canvas and got progressively larger. Most were created the same way: I began with no subject in mind and watched as the narrative emerged. Decisions were made quickly and intuitively. My work strives to keep the narrative ambiguous, allowing the viewer's own psychology to affect his interpretation. As I build the painting I am most interested in these things: to create careful spatial tensions, to build figures that seem alive, and to create backgrounds for them that are believable as atmosphere and, at the same time, convey a psychological component. In some cases the paintings suggest the way things look in my dreams and sometimes they suggest, to me, a realm outside of time and space.
Frank Born
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