BRICK. Detail (Vase), JMN, 2014. Oil on canvas, 34 x 34 in.

“Painting objects and people as they actually appear….”
(Andrew Ferren, “A 7-Hour, 6-Mile, Round-the-Museum Tour of the Prado,” NYTimes, 3-18-19)

The phrase encapsulates my former goal: To paint something accurately, yet somehow enhanced: A simplistic, naive and ambiguous goal all in one. Nothing is as it appears (to me).

FRAME. Detail (Flags and Guns), JMN, 2014. Oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in.

In early pictures I aspired to “trompe l’oeil” of all things, that fool-the-eye trick that can tempt the viewer to walk into a wall perceiving a corridor there. Or to fall for a fake frame painted on a picture. I was also drawn to the pictorial jokes of Maigret — naughty, playful, ironic.

CORRIDORS. Detail (Blue Gate), JMN, 2014. Oil on canvas. 48 x 48 in.

It seemed like a lark at first; however, stints at the easel had a chastening effect, and made me want to get more serious. Worse luck. My goal now, in general, is to paint with less ego and more gumption.

(c) 2019 JMN.