I've been painting twenty-three years; abstracts, though my style has segued from abstract expressionism to
a more minimalist style.  I refer to my process as 'aleatory' which is progressing through guided chance. Once
the composition is set in motion I allow the paint to extend according to its own properties, through its own
progression.  As the action school emphasized motion, the act is an invocation in acrylic, layering,
distressing, abrading and causing the paint’s dissolution through the use of enzymes abrasives and chemicals.  
The technique gives rise to recognizable patterns mirroring the mind’s tendency to assign meaning to pattern,
as the certain juxtaposition of color values invokes melancholy, or the subtle declination of line draws the
viewer in by addressing the particular physiognomy of the brain which reacts to particular angles, thereby
the paintings achieve a Mobius-like synchronicity of viewer and subject, and interpretation mirroring
method.

My compositions reflect these themes: the degraded, abraded and distressed surfaces reflecting the
psychological states instilled in the viewer: the partitioning reflecting the hierarchies of self, the deviations
from extreme and mean ratio representing deviations from the psychological mean: delineation of
proportion representative of the disintegration on the periphery of perception… stark fields in contrast
metaphor for the summum of the human psyche in conflict.  The act of creating art transcending simple
representation as an occult window into self-realization, and so its execution and meaning are inseparable
within the standard artist’s statement model.  Like the Zen Koan, my paintings are meant to bring the viewer
to a realization.  

There is an invisible connection within any images that is its soul  ...then why not go on to say "images are
souls" (Hillman, from Inquiry into Image).  This is the Gnostic element of my paintings. These images are
souls, call them synonymous with emotional or psychological states.  As primitive people believed a created
object is spirit-charged, so within these paintings is an unnamed element, spirit-charged, and likewise a
method into understanding.  If minimalist works should invoke a meditative state: my works seek to invoke
an altered state. They are ghosts and abandoned places, and as such, windows into your own soul.

This is how they should be approached.
Brian Burris, Artist's Statement
When painting, an artist must take care not to trap his soul in the canvas.  

                                                                                            -Dena Groquet