The Forest and the Sea: An Art Exhibit by Christopher Rico from Justin Metcalfe on Vimeo.

In the Winter of 2009, I saw Cy Twombly’s Green Paintings for the first time.  They immediately resonated with me because they somehow tapped into my personal mythology: ideas about water and soulfulness, the depth of human emotions and the necessity of the heroic journey.

For years, I had been thinking of a story for my twin daughters.  A variation of the classic hero’s tale, I imagined them journeying through a deep forest and encountering various animals who would each be symbolic of a phase of life.  Over time, this story slowly morphed into an abstract for a ballet.  The combination of seeing Twombly’s paintings and changing my approach to how I wanted to tell the story resulted in this series of work.

At about the time I conceived of this series, I stopped using brushes.  I had spent a lot of time painting with my daughters, and the experience of both watching them paint with their hands and doing it myself enthralled me.  In looking around the studio, I realized that what was most important to me was a sense of connection; with my materials, with my surfaces and with my audience.  I wanted to give people work that didn’t prescribe feelings or responses, but work which allowed them to discover their own unique truth.

Like finding forms in clouds, even when one knows the clouds are not trying to be those forms, so too looking at abstract art can be a liberating experience.  I want to know what people see and what they feel.  That is the meaning to me.