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| David Aylsworth Fine, Fin and Haddie 2014 oil on canvas 78" x 84" |
About a year ago, I saw an exhibition at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts of paintings, drawings, and photographs by people who had made expeditions to Antarctica. Lawren Harris, Rockwell Kent, Frederic Church and the like. Everything was figurative, but maybe because of the majesty of icebergs and aurora boreali, the figuration often came remarkably close to abstraction. I really got into the airtight, frozen and silent gravity and spiritual splendor of just about everything I saw there, and I've been trying (rather unsuccessfully) to bring those feelings into my own paintings back in my studio. Maybe it's the activity of painting itself that distracts me from that feeling of wonder and awe... when I'm moving around, flinging paint, or fixating on straightening a line, it's hard to sit back and be awestruck... but I guess that's almost getting back to your question about "what drives you to work?", isn't it?
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