Bob Armstrong
I have fallen in love with wood, and the carving that it invites. It is the inspiration for my carved paintings that explore the textural richness and variety of nature. Through carving I can investigate nature’s formal structures and wild beauty, and through painted color I can lure the eye with highly focused monochromatic color.
My work is influenced by Japanese art and by the California Arts and Crafts movement, with their shared insistence on grace and compositional beauty.
The poetic impulse is also crucial, and the poet Pablo Neruda offers a telling insight:
“Blossom and water and wheat kernel share one precious consistency: the sumptuous appeal of the tactile.”
It is this surprising and endlessly varied tactility that moves me to create this artwork.
