Anthony Pessler

Ultimately, art's highest goal is to be revelatory. That is, to reveal or uncover a truth that is present, but may be, at times, hidden or unnoticed. We are, at each moment, surrounded by magic and mystery, love and beauty. These things are available to us should we choose to trust that they are there and accept them. Talking about one's work is a tricky endeavor. A painting is the result of many separate threads of thought, intuition, accident and inspiration, which have evolved along distinct but related paths. To explore one, say the development of a technique or image can be misleading if not understood in relation to the others. At the end of the day, all one really needs to know about a painting is there to see – hanging on the wall. With that said, I like to think of my paintings as short stories whose plots rearrange themselves according to the desires of the viewer. They come from my love of nature and my will to understand the nature of love. They come from personal experiences and captivating places that stand out in my memory and imagination. They come from Netherlandish religious painting, hardcore minimalism, German Romanticism, and Disney animation. They come from my love of illusion – the magic that happens when color, shape, line and mark are arranged just so. I don't imagine I'm much different from most artists. We make things to figure out who we are and send them out into the world like little love letters – reminders that we're not so different, not so alone.

On the icon paintings:

In eastern orthodox traditions, for centuries the icon has functioned as a point of contact between the corporeal world and that of the divine. An object of contemplation, meditation, and veneration, it has provided a portal, through which one might reflect and worship, offer gratitude, and pray for guidance, wisdom, and strength. And since the dawn of consciousness, the animals with which we share the earth, have not only played vital roles in the architecture of our history, but have occupied essential positions in the human imagination. They have come to represent the qualities and impulses by which we measure value and morality, good and evil. It is my hope that my recent icon paintings might offer the viewer an opportunity to contemplate, without judgment, our relationships with the identities we construct, with each other, and with the incalculable complexity of the world.