David Bates b.1952

Honeymoon Plate

circa 1980

“What he has learned from the art of the museums, Cobb has fully assimilated and modified in the development of his own personal vision. And while enriched by these historical perspe...

Artist Statement: How many ways can I depict a flower? I can draw it, paint it, and photograph it. Then I can manipulate those images on a printer. I can enlarge it. Make it smaller. Make the negative. Make the positive. Change the color. My mornings in Santa Fe start with a walk around the garden to see what has bloomed overnight. Two summers ago, I rented an adobe guest house that is surrounded by Hollyhocks, Roses, Poppies, and Yellow Thistles. The flowers have crept into my vision. The first summer, I painted the flowers using oil on canvas. The second summer I became more experimental, combining drawing, photography, and painting. Mixing the media all in one artwork, I abandoned canvas for transparent Lucite panels. The new works are essentially mixed media collage applied to Lucite. Working on front and back, layered to see through to the next. Creating a real space with real shadows but in an ambiguous world. The flowers are dense but there is an identity and clear shape of each. These works are labor intensive, requiring precise cutting of the paper and careful application. In "The Flowers of the Street of Spirits," black Hollyhocks stand tall with turquoise Firewheels and magenta Coneflowers. Real and unreal. Cut paper and paint come together in a surreal garden...