FEATURED (WORD) ARTIST: DARRELL NETTLES

A Presentation by Eileen Tabios:

I’m a long-time fan of Darrell Nettles’ work, ever since his “Woven Canvas” series  which, for me, is a marvelous investigation into the line.  More recently, I have admired his “Broken Verse” series.  I asked Darrell to talk about these works and he generously shared the following Artist Statement:

Broken Verse   

My new work is a mystery to me. In my earlier work I often experimented with symbols and language, but the recent “Broken Verse” paintings signal a new direction: in the past, language was often an element in my work, but in the “Broken Verse” paintings, language is front and center. 

These new paintings present a field of hand-painted letters, numbers and other symbols held together in a loose grid pattern.  The initial painting contains a random assortment of symbols spread over and beyond the surface of the rectangle. 

I then edit these symbols for scale, color, sound, weight, content, energy and balance.  I paint out symbols to remove unnecessary distractions and also to open up space, giving the paintings room to breathe.  I add symbols to construct new sounds, phrases, images, ideas and thoughts. 

This process of repeatedly adding and taking away symbols enables me to create clarity, ambiguity, movement, meaning and emotion in works that can be seen both as paintings and as cryptic texts, stories, songs or poems.  

Here are some more images of Darrell Nettles’ "Broken Verse":

More information about Darrell Nettles’ work is available at his website: http://darrellnettles.com/main.htm