Frank Rivera, painter
 

 

Artist's Statement

All art is, ultimately, autobiographical. Since the early 1960s I have kept a journal. Journal writing is by nature secretive. It invites the writer to look beneath the surface. People, places and things warp under scrutiny, fulfilling the writer’s very human need to re-invent the world.

My paintings suspend chronology and result in a redefined experience. While exploring events, both real and imagined, they may be read as so many pages of a diary. As I organize visual material for my paintings, I attempt to link images to a particular event in my life. In presenting the result to those who would study these paintings, I am hoping to ring an experiential bell in their memories, even though I may encode my own memory or disguise the event.

My painting is organized in a series of small panels. By keeping them small, I am attempting to heighten intimacy between the painter and viewer. The panels function, I hope, like a small hand-held book or deck of cards, intended to be seen, read, and processed by one person at a time.

Normally the panels are intended to be read left to right in the manner of a storyboard. As with a storyboard, there is a distinct illusion of time lapse as the eye scans from one panel to the next in search of meaningful clues.

Sometimes, however, the panels are arranged in what appears to be a random sequence, like a series of portals or windows within a larger field. This device leads the viewer to double back in what feels like a manipulation of a time-based event.

My images include – among other things – a variety of gesturing hands, mechanical birds, puppets, chairs and appliances performing in ways contrary to the laws of nature. These subjects are sometimes painted into nearly identical backgrounds. At other times it is the object that replicates. The human eye is fascinated by the prospect of sorting out the irregularities between exact copies. It is equally fascinated by making connections between polar opposites.