Bruce Combs - REACH BEYOND

REACH BEYOND, my logo and general theme and goal, usually is the first painting on the left of the top row below, or near there. Go ahead and click on it now to open it up for a much better look. And if you're interested, then just go on to more of the paintings. You can always come back and read what I wrote about me. But I seriously hope that these paintings present various facets of my perceptions of our world -- or wishes FOR it -- more vividly -- or at least differently -- than writing can. They mutely show what objects and situations I think merit attention and from what points of view I choose to present them and in what medium and style. I hope that perhaps some, or even a part of one, will touch and vibrate with some part of you, too.

I am a retired English Professor who began painting about 10 years ago. I'd like to moan that I started so late in life because when I was very young a teacher told me sternly that with my 'scribblings' it would be a favor to the world if I never so much as pick up a crayon again. I took that to heart for over 50 years, and only dared reading about art and going to all the museums and shows I could. Finally I gathered all my courage to try -- with great trepidation -- some lessons. The first few times were dreadfully painful. Then suddenly I became so involved that I could hardly stop!

I studied representational drawing and painting techniques with Jean Eliott Jones at StudioJean in The Hague, The Netherlands, for 7 years. The Hague is a handy place to live for traveling to the major museums in the countries of western Europe, and I spent a lot of time informally studying both the old masters and contemporary artists. I became especially intrigued with portraying light and reflections on water; there is so much water in The Netherlands! Before moving back to the United States with my wife and our young son, I had four personal shows in The Hague, with encouraging reviews in the Nation's largest newspaper (granted, the country is not very large, though!). I also had works in business places: internet cafe's, banks, etc.

I worked at representative drawing and painting from about 1998 till shortly after 9/11. Suddenly I became obsessed with images of destruction, even in my dreams. Violent dreams such as I don't remember ever experiencing before. Then one night just I got up and painted a 20 X 28 inch canvas of one of those images. Just like that it was all there, except for morning touch-ups. During 7 nights of the next 10 or so I painted 6 more that became the series of my 9/11 paintings (Displayed in another gallery now). And so my paintings and much of their creation has moved continually in that direction ever since: I think about painting, and what I see, and what I hear, and feel, most all the time, as well as dream; and then something feels ready and I just paint it. Since 9/11, art that is more or less non-representational physically is about all that I have wanted to paint.

I shy away quite seriously from those words commonly used in a bipolar descriptive manner: REALISTIC, ABSTRACT, and so forth. My paintings, and most painters, do not ABSTRACT in any literal sense from anything, whether or not there actually was a group who referred to themselves as painting abstracts or abstractly. At the same time, I doubt that any creator of two-dimensional objects which she or he calls art will consider that it is not real, nor that it does not attempt to portray and/or to create thoughts or feelings in the minds of viewers. If titled, it may concern something in particular: often a new way of looking at or thinking about some thing or idea.

Meanwhile, a Realistic or Representational painter might be described literally as abstracting from something seen, say by a camera, to make a realistic painting. Only in the extreme, do you find an artist trying to equal a camera reproduction. More often, I would say (as others probably have) that they are trying to enhance and/or to extend reality. Interestingly the methods and techniques that they employ toward such goals are often the same as those used by Non-Representational painters: perspectives and points of view (or not and perhaps shifting within a painting), choices of colors and their hues and shapes and their juxtapositions and other relationships among them, types of brush or palate knives and the textures created, the types of lines, or none, or few, and so forth.

Occasionally, I still try a portrait, which I do not do too well and, not only just lose friends, but even make enemies, especially mothers whose children I have tried to represent in a painting and thought was a quite good likeness!

I have been doing a lot of painting without a teacher or group during the last two years in Virginia. I have not tried to get exhibits or gallery placements in the United States yet, and I have published paintings only on the internet.

Many of my paintings deal with environmental or political issues, and I strongly prefer to work with acrylic paints. Recently I have begun painting on various sorts of cardboard. I find various textures interesting and try to utilize them in the texture of a painting.

More of my paintings are displayed online at


ArtWanted
www.artwanted.com/BruceCombs

and at WEBSHOTS

http://community.webshots.com/user/brucecombs

and at Google's PICASA

http://picasaweb.google.com/combs69

and at YESSY GALLERY

http://www.yessy.com/art/?skw=bruce+combs

and also at A SINGULAR CREATION

I hope you enjoy the paintings or at least find something interesting. Please feel welcome to comment or ask questions in the spaces provided down at the bottom of a page or email me in the box provided or at:

bcombs@ecologyfund.net

Thank you, Peace, etc.,
Bruce Combs

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