Le Monde Bleu 1, 2019, 15 x 20 inches, Ink on paper
I spent the summer of 2019 in Montreal with my family. We’ve been traveling quite a bit of late, supporting my wife’s career and her passion for French culture. During this time, we have stayed in a number of flats and have noticed the near ubiquity of a world map on display. In response to this observation, I started to draw and paint my own pictures of the world with blue ink that my sister gave me. Coincidentally, it was announced in August that a long lost album by John Coltrane, Blue World, had been discovered and would be released on September 27th, 2019. This album was commissioned in 1964 by Montreal filmmaker, Gilles Groulx, for his film, Le chat dans le sac; while Groulx only used 10 minutes of it for his soundtrack, you can now listen to the whole album online. For me, the coincidence of time and place, subject and color, felt enlarging and spiritual, something like Proust’s notion of an artist’s “lost homeland.”
Le Monde Bleu 2, 2019, 15 x 20 inches, Ink on paper
Le Monde Bleu 3, 2019, 15 x 20 inches, Ink on paper
What space I inhabit/You'll fill with water or sky, 2020, 22 x 30 inches, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on 300 lb. Jack Richeson paper
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a new blue world map image became widely distributed in the media, cataloguing deaths and infection rates around the world.
Mappemonde, 2020, 22 x 30 inches, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on 300 lb. Jack Richeson paper