Ted Washington

Artist Statement

DOTS

The search for order in this chaos. Art. Life. I was hoping to draw pretty pictures but something happens. I get carried away. Dots take time, time for my mind to get away from all of this. The pretty pictures get lost in there and this art is what remains. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is always an alpha for every omega; more ink, more paper and more time. The chaos takes me. Order is for the end.

You probably don’t want to hear some metaphysical bullshit. You want to hear an answer to, “Why dots?” That I was homeless and how only the pens survived the spiral of drugs, booze and women. And how drugs, booze and women funded and fueled the art.

You probably want to hear about technical challenges; of finding proper gradation in the pen sizes. How I pursued achieving depth in the darkest regions, using the negative space in the foreground and background, using texture to convey the image.

About studying Cezanne, Schielle, Adams and Close for the roadmap to the figurative and away. How nature, philosophy, meditation and music have taken me further into abstraction.
The reality of it is, if I live the art will be the reason. Journeys through chaos to order.

PORTRAITS

I create my source imagery by taking black and white film photographs. It’s always about lighting. That is what I draw: what the light exposes and obliterates; the dark or the light held at bay. The art is the interpretation of those transitions; patterns of dots forming recognition.


ABSTRACTIONS

Maybe stipple shouldn't be used this way. Oh well.
These abstractions are a search my own language with the dots; patterns implying script. Shapes are suspended in a field of motion embodying the energy used to place each dot. Giving vision to the energy within reality and the energy that is reality.