“Communion Where The Hills Have No Name”
acrylic latex on sailcloth
31.5” x 23.5”
July 24, 1993
In the Abler Collection

 

Influenced by Picasso and cubism – mixed with my Pop Art sensibilities, in 1993 I began to find my own style of painting by following my intuition and experimenting, experimenting, experimenting!

This piece was created during a very prolific period in the summer of that year. I was in love with moving the paint around on sailcloth, which has a different weave than canvas. Smoother and more refined, it was great for scrumbling the paint, which is a dry brush technique used to softly layer the paint.

The imagery I used here was two motifs I had been using all year – the guitar and a cup. Neither object had any symbolism attached, they were just images I worked with over and over again. I remember I was listening to U2’s album “Joshua Tree” while painting this and added a desert color scheme to make it be in a place where the hills have no name.

This painting has been in the Abler collection for a long time. Paul Abler, a friend of mine, was our next-door neighbor when I painted this piece and it was hanging in his apartment nearly as soon as the paint dried.