ARTIST STATEMENT
“I have always been drawn to the arts as both participant and critic. I love to play and improvise and it is in the artistic realm that permission to do so is most freely granted. For me, to create a picture is to solve a puzzle where the solution requires selecting and designing the interlocking pieces. If the process is pleasurable, I manage to maintain a mode of play and feel rich with anticipation and curiosity as to what the end product will be. In the process I work at manipulating perspectives and depth, discovering new ways of using lines and looking for colors that might add zing.”
Ron Weil can be reached by phone or email at 510-528-2984 or ronweil@yahoo.com. Also, you can see more of Mr. Weil’s work at his website: www.ronweil.com
“I draw in charcoal and chalk pastels, often adding water or rubbing alcohol. The immediacy of these media appeals to me; their dusty messiness reinforces and enables my sense of play. In addition, the textural range of pastels is fun to explore. In some of my more recent work I have begun to use my own templates in order to stretch the bounds of what is possible in this medium. My inspirations are varied and may stem from a tree trunk, the wall of a factory seen on an afternoon walk, a line or shape remembered from another artist’s work, or the successful portion of an earlier effort that failed. I assume from the start that these initial notions are nothing more than the first key to unlocking the doors to the image’s future– not at all a blueprint for the finished product. The process often evokes in me a sense that I am telling a story. The story’s elements may be wispy and transient, but my goal is not for the viewer to ‘read’ the picture as I conceived it, but to make it worth their time to look, to open for them a new world. Finishing a piece (if I am so lucky) is when all the elements, colors, shapes and meanings that made it onto the page fit together. I trust my senses enough to feel that if the work appears finished to me, than an audience that is willing to join my game will find pleasure.”
“My subject matter ranges from portraits to abstractions. As I proceed in my exploration, I find myself drawn to explore a narrower range of stylistic paths. I remain interested in exploring portraits and scenes in two ways: relatively realistic, though not photographically so (Urban Pa(s)th), and by using some of my abstract textural tools to explore the subjective side of my subjects (Hotel). I also plan to continue to pursue my love of abstract play, which also branches in two directions, one of which is relatively preplanned and makes use of preliminary sketches and stencils (You Never Know and Conversation), while the other path is more spontaneous–where the picture’s final qualities are the realization of unforeseen possibilities and the culmination of a series of aesthetic discoveries (Shadow).”
“Ultimately my only intent is to create pictures that are both visually fulfilling and emotionally surprising, with after-tastes and after-visions that may linger in the viewers mind and heart.”