America

I saw this image in a magazine, or part of it. The ad in the magazine had a room full of couches, throw pillows, lamps and end tables, and behind it all was this wall. I saw the flag in it immediately. I reminded me of the encaustic white flags of Jasper Johns. I knew I wanted to paint it. I love the texture of the brick, the warmth of the ocher and sienna leaking out behind the white paint. I love how the paint attempts to "sanitize" the brick, to make it look new or renewed. But really the texture is louder than the paint. I love the wall and the window that looks out into nothing behind the wall, as if all the substance is in the wall and everything else is just window dressing. I want to paint this painting again and again, trying to recapture the different textures of each individual brick, or maybe a new painting of nothing but brick and more brick, or brick and wood panel. I want to do this partly because painting is a lot like building a brick wall, one piece at a time, slowly building up layers, layers that both reveal and conceal. I like the idea of this painting hanging on a wall somewhere, hiding the space behind it like a wall, while revealing the textures, the materials the substance of the wall that it hides, brick, mortar, paint. I call this painting America, mostly because it reminds me of how this country is built, putting up walls and tearing them down, layer after layer, century after century, one brick at a time.