Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present a solo show of new paintings by David Collins.
The title Stations is multi referential. It refers to the idea of stations as open points of communication. Stations are physical positions where one spends time working. A person can be “stationed” somewhere that is not one’s home. Stations are also meditative and reflective pauses as in the Christian “stations of the cross”.
The idea of physical stations refers to the way that Collins approaches his paintings. The artist works on numerous paintings concurrently. Spending time at each “work station”. Collins works on many paintings side by side, moving about the studio, shifting work from one position to another depending on which work is demanding of his attention. A dialogue is created between the works. The paintings inform one another. Layers are added and subtracted. The works become a family of paintings. The family of paintings shares ideas, compositional elements and a reference to Collins’ own family.
Much of what inspires the painter comes from his father’s pioneering efforts in the fields of communications and aviation. Within the lush brush strokes, the layering of images and the scraping away of paint is the painters’ own complex language of symbols. These symbols can sometimes be the concentric circles that represent radio waves, decorative floral patterning borrowed from a carved and painted Madonna in his mother’s collection or grid like fields of color that are literally agricultural fields from his memories of childhood in Iowa. The works remind one of “letters home” from Collins’ “station” in New York.
The overall effect of David Collins’ painting is luminous and joyous. Collins is a painter who embraces the tradition of abstract painting. His masterly handling of color and composition are proof that painting is still fresh and original and very much alive.
