AQUARIUM

People looking at fish looking at people looking. I'm always interested in making it feel as though you could walk inside my paintings, be a part of the painting. I like the hubub of the crowd. Viewers can then take part along with people in the paintings. Though the frame exists, boundaries are broken.

My aquarium paintings started in the usual way—from drawings during visits to the Montery Bay Aquarium. I found it to be a perfect place to draw people and fish. Both became my subjects. I'm attracted to public situations where crowds of people, jostling against one another, are involved in a common activity—in this case looking at fish. And the fish are looking back. The water and the lighting and the structure of the space make the experience magical. It's a kind of theatre. The fish are the actors on stage in the world of water; we, the audience, (whether inside the frame or out) are in the world of land and air. We are two strange worlds looking at one another.

It is a long, slow process watching creatures of the deep — some moving slowly, just hovering, some gliding along the bottom, others swarm in schools, glinting in and out of light. Sharks circle swiftly in their watery cage. Suddenly a bird crashes through the water — a beak leading wings and feet and bubbles as it streaks down amongst fish, then zooms out again in one breath.

At the Outer Bay there is such a quiet and yet a hum—perhaps there's music. There are two stars here. They make only occasional entrances, moving slowly. The great Sea Turtle—a rounded, lumbering marine angel and the magnificent Sun Fish—a bony silver plate with fins. I can wait for them forever.

These paintings involved studying life and then reinventing it in paint. I used my drawings as a spring board to find what I'm really interested in, in terms of space, people, gestures, fish, relationships and, ultimately, composition. I took photographs to study particulars about fish, lighting, water, and the space of the aquarium. From there I merged the two tools and used my imagination to make the paintings. Painting is a long process. Small paintings are like conversations. These large, complex paintings are like a long relationship.