Original artwork description:

Searching for the Gamboge is a series of paintings stemming from his first experiences as a professional artist. When he was starting art school in the 1980's he recieved a gift of professional grade art supplies. In the supplies was a set of Grumbacher watercolors in tubes. One of the tubes was Gamboge (Yellow). It was muddy, brownish, almost ugly in its beauty. He still has pieces in his collection from the 1980's painted with those Grumbacher watercolors.

Searching for the Gamboge is a remembering back to those first, most special artworks. The series incorporates a gridded structure over random areas of mixed colors and an over-layer of brownish-yellow that replicates the Gamboge.

He has been looking for a modern-day replacement for Gamboge in oils, but has yet to find it; the search continues.

His influences for these Searching for the Gamboge paintings are Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Hoffman, Robert Motherwell, Clifford Still.

Materials used:

Oil, oil stick, graphite, pencil