Jeff Breed

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create art because I have to. It is a need. All existence is expression. The ultimate act of an artist is the selfless act of pure creation. I often enter a trance-like state when I'm engaged in painting or sculpting-as if my hand is guided by my communion with the work. Time stops and I feel that I am living my destiny. However, I maintain a hyperawareness of my process and ability to impact audiences with my soul rendering perceptions. Art is a way to remember what I already know through asking visual questions of my audience and myself.

I am a painter and sculptor who uses an abstract process and various mediums to entice a journey of self-discovery. I utilize basic color theory in my painting approach, and then layer paints with a palette knife, scraping off and smearing in strategic areas until the work cries out finality. In order to refine textural issues, I also use additives like gel, glass beads, sand, aluminum shavings and mica for added dimension. My abstract process is skillfully used to obscure literal translation so that we may reorder our own individual experience of our identity.