Jean Warner

I cannot play poker. My hand, when dealt to me, is reflected through my face with an almost frightening clarity to the other players. My cards may as well be dealt on the table, face up.

From my vantage point, these paintings mirror this lucid transparency of my emotions and thoughts.

They lap up the wanderlust at my heels, they mimic the ambiguous landscapes of my dreams and nightmares, and they murmur of my childhood, my family, and my character.

These paintings are fueled by challenging conversation, by the untamed curiosity found in children, by beautiful color combinations, by sparkles of kind memories, and by music.

They are often influenced by the sheer awe and meditative state found when looking at work by other artists such as Carnwath, Speer, Darger, or the Warner brothers.

What has been created in this past transitional year are results of the relentless requisite to inquire more from the quiet alcoves in my mind, to fill the space I inhabit with more meaning, and to communicate with you for a moment of sincerity in our common days and nights.

February 2009
all photographs by Sabin Aell

Jean Warner

Andrew Warner

I find it very difficult to speak to large groups of people. I have a persona that comes out, an actor of sorts, but for a truly worthwhile exchange I prefer one on one, or a very small number of honest and interesting people.

When I think of painting, specifically as an act of communication, I don’t think about communicating to everyone at once, but to one person at a time. I take myself out of that equation as well, when it comes down to the painting and the viewer. I hold sacred this exchange on many levels, in the Carvaggio’s and Goya’s and Rothko’s I’ve had the fortune to see up close after a lifetime admiring them in books;

Later in my sister’s and brother’s paintings, deep and strange and wonderful works reflecting part of our shared story, but more importantly a distinct voice of their own, in my work as it matures, the things a painting tells you once it’s complete, and of course in all the new and wonderful Art out there.

I think that relationship, that one on one, is what I want for anyone who has the time and willing nature to commune with a static object, find its secrets out, make a friend or an enemy of it. Whether you fall in love with a painting, are horrified (or horrifically bored) by it, these sensations and emotions are yours alone, and no one need interfere with that holy session, unless of course you asked them to.

I seek out help occasionally, but I know given enough time with a piece it can give me much more of what it has to offer than if I had gone to a guide. With any creation, be it painting, or child, or lab experiment, if there is enough time and arduous care over its development, what is nearly always conveyed to me is the act or acts of love which brought that creation to be. I love to paint, and am in love with the processes and procedures it takes to make paintings.

I put a lot of what I love into the work, and a lot of the pain and tension, and suffering and terrible situations that come about when love is either not enough, or not accounted for. I don’t really want to get much more specific than that here, but if you would like more details or clarification, I’d be happy to exchange thoughts.

Andrew Warner

Thanks to our live band support:

Sweet Tooth Meat Tooth (a duo, side project from the people in Monofog)
& Michael Andrew Doherty playing "shakuhachi"JUK