Colorfield paintings have always been a favorite. This is a wonderful conversation with Thorton Willis. His paintings as fresh today as when he began.

from the artist:

To describe 21st Century spatial concepts (in painting) is to try and depict the basic interconnectedness of matter in which form only appears separate.
In fact, all form struggles to maintain itself in the dynamic flow of space and time. The essence of nature and of our own human existence is change, movement towards or way from one form to the next.

In my paintings the forms are locked in this flux. It is part of the dynamic of the work and meant to be so. In this work, figure and ground, positive and negative are all equal. There is a suggestion of volume in the form, which continues to interest me as I work towards depicting a kind of Biomorphic Cubism.

The way I work is to develop, intuitively, an image through a working process over a period of time. As the image develops, I begin making changes within that framework. The manner in which the painting happens; how it is conceived and then developed is of particular interest to me. Either the painting is an image or it contains an image. In either case, concerning the integrity of painting, it seems preferable that the image develops out of a working painterly process, no matter how complex or simple, as opposed to the appropriation or selection of imagery based on whim or theory.

- Thornton Willis, (excerpted from exhibition catalogue), 2002

video: Directed by Michael Feldman. Featuring Thornton Willis and James Panero.Produced in coordination with Willis's March 2009 exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York.

A profile of the abstract painter Thornton Willis from James Panero on Vimeo.

website : Thornton Willis