Ron Buffington: Artist Statement

Painting is a language in denial. To paint, that is to literally apply paint to a surface, is to render visible. But the application of paint also entails a covering over or shrouding, and in this sense to paint is both to reveal and to conceal. This makes presence a dubious concept as far as painting is concerned.

I’ve always endeavored to demystify painting with a capital “P.” This has led me to reject some of the conventional imperatives of painting, particularly of Modernist painting, which has historically invoked the transcendent, the ideal and the spiritual. My work privileges the tainted over the pure, the flawed over the perfect, the personal over the universal and the pathetic over the heroic.

Mathematical systems provide the impetus for my recent work, yielding architectonic frameworks that are repeated, varied and recombined. The resulting images might elicit any number of associations (the mapping of terrain, the facets of a gem, etc.). Yet one’s experience of the paintings cannot be reduced as such.