Abstract Figurative Paintings

“White Light”

“White Light” is the next installment within Brett Amory’s “Waiting” series. Amory began the “Waiting” series in 2001 with paintings depicting commuter subjects seemingly detached from their fellow passengers and surrounding environments, inspired by the introverted culture of public transit and inhabitants of the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

“Waiting”

The painting series entitled “Waiting” depicts the urban individual’s yearning for presence and the seeming impossibility of attaining it. The paintings portray commuters in transit immersed in either a quiet, even hopeful state or, alternately, an anguish of unfulfilled anticipation.

At first, the series, begun in 2001, depicted travelers waiting underground. But as the paintings evolved, the people ceased to be exclusively travelers, and began to emphasize figures selected from anonymous snaphots of city streets. Although the experience of waiting remains, the perception of it has changed from one of mundane task to one leavened with transcendence.

The series has also charted the evolution of an artist—the reductive elements of the compositions provide an outward echo of the inner states of the figures.  By reducing the elements of the painting as far as possible, a frozen moment is extended.

Lastly, I have developed favored motifs in the series, a kind of visual music, such as repetition of a human image, to show not only the passage of time but of the human being through it.

Brett Amory

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