OILS After years of work in other genres including abstraction, my current work is focused on the figurative.   I say this even though I am well aware that all is abstraction—every painting is composed of pixels of paint on a flat surface, molecules without name.     It is a choice we make- how far to let the molecules differentiate- that determines the ultimate image.  When we finally stand back, magically they seem to coalesce into illusions of substance and form.      At present I like to make the paint pixels combine to suggest facsimiles of living beings.  Why?  Because when my emotion-- sympathy or distaste, infuses the color dots and dashes, the fabricated faux-being perhaps can speak back and deliver a message to the viewer.   If successful, this may offer a clue to the artist’s mind, the universal mind, the human heart, and the moment. The abstract building blocks have created something evocative and therefore purposeful.