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HT- Exactly
v5-You can see it across all the different pieces at your last show, that part was really extraordinary.
HT- I think that's the common thing with all the work is that I am sort of like a scientist. I think that my brain works that way so the idea of exploration and discovery and trying things.
v5- Do you see your work in sets?
HT- Well I have been more recently. Before it used to be more individual pieces and then what happened was I started working with smaller
12 x12 inch size and on multiple canvases at the same time. They would evolve as sort of one series or a group. What I envisioned happening next is creating continuing work in that mode on a much larger scale, in the sense of filling an entire gallery with this sort of experience. So I’m painting towards an installation or a kind of hovering in that border somewhere.
v5- In the larger canvas there is a point where the surface begins to read, as something that the smaller works only suggest is possible. It may have to do with the human scale or the size of the 'marks' but there are second readings, patterns, color sets and shapes that come to life.
HT- Exactly. It's a little bit tricky because what I generally do is work with a piece that is flat on the ground and use a glazing technique where I'm building up layers and layers of colors.
the difference is, as an artist, creating the pieces, is the process. You know when you are working very large it becomes more like a dance!
v5- Right.
HT- Your whole body is involved, you’re reaching, you’re trying to fit things in. Plus when it's small, it’s much more focused and intimate so that it's a very different type of an experience. Then as a viewer, when you’re looking at a tiny object, it's a different experience than something that's larger than you are.
Once it gets past your retina and into your nervous system, that's part of what all the texture and patterns are about. That's actually from having seen the work years ago of the Australian Aborigines before they became really popular. I was mesmerized by it. You could say the same thing about the impressionist paintings, what it does to your eyes and mind.
v5- The picture is made in the mind. It is different than what's actually on the canvas.
HT- You really are interacting with the painting in that it manipulates you in a certain aspect and you manipulate it. If you want to see it a certain way you have to stand over here. If you want to see it a different way you have to move to another position. So I like that sense of movement because that's the whole thing about part of my work, this idea of rhythm and beat. It's repetition, we read a pattern visually, I like the idea that translates in a physiological sense into actual movement on the part of the viewer if they so choose.
In a way I demand a lot from my viewers. You can't just sort of stand there and..... (laughing) I mean I guess you can but you get more out of it
if you’re willing to be more interactive with a painting, and I invite people to touch them. That's the other thing I think it's really awful, to
make paintings that are really sort of seductive and juicy and sensual and then you can't touch it...
v5- We are teased...
HT- Yes...(laughing). The bottom line of what I'm dealing with is the idea of creation that's on a molecular or cellular level. I usually don't know what's going to happen. I have no idea other than picking a certain size or shape of canvas! One painting I did I took a margarine tub that I had saved with its plastic lid. I then put paint in with the water that had been sitting in it for a while. I opened it and I guess because the water had bacteria it, there was mold floating on top.
So I thought 'OK', then I poured it on the canvas (both laughing), let it dry, then started working over it. I ended up with a really interesting painting with this wonderful texture. So now I actually try to do that, (both laughing) my little science experiment !
v5- Do you do a lot of that? I mean mixing and sort of finding ways of altering surfaces?
HT- I'm very interested in the whole translucent quality. I like the idea of layering, I guess the idea that things are never what they appear to be. I sort of get the idea of the magic that it makes it a little bit elusive so you can't quite figure out what's going on. I'm not a chemist I'd probably be blowing things up. It was actually an education for me to say "Oh I can actually be more playful here!" In a way this are kind of
like little puzzle pieces I use things like rubber bands which are you know about as mundane as you can get, (laughing) not too much is exciting about a rubber band.
v5- I was looking at your work for a while before it dawned on me what the pieces were.
HT- Right.
v5- Because it is not at all about that.
HT- No, it really isn't.
v5- You sort have used them as reservoirs, this sort of realm of what's in a circle.
HT- Exactly.
v5- What's outside that circle.The textural qualities are extraordinary!
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