darren waterston: shimmering neuronal aether

i recently came across the work of san francisco artist darren waterston. working in both oil and watercolour - oil being one of the more historically loaded yet more forgiving media of those available to artists - and watercolour, being one of the least forgiving. waterston’s work dances between rigid form and aetheric otherness. transparency and luminosity characterize his work which has the feeling at times of being painted from the perspective of a person at great depths in the ocean, and then in deep space capturing some fleeting moment in the life of a gas plasma cloud.

waterston’s most recent work includes the extraordinary “hyle”, a massive oil on wood panel work measuring some 54 by 168 inches. are you observing events from inside a kelp forest, a neuronal discharge, or perhaps the view as seen from your vantage point while lying on your back on another planet?


similarly, “gravity” depicts the fingers of two distinct electrical discharges arc-whipping across a miasmic space through clouds of bubbles and spherical objects, while the feeble glow of suns and moons, tries to reach through the algae-like wash obscuring the whole.


waterston’s work is on display at greg kucera’s gallery way the heck over in seattle, washington. if you visit kucera’s gallery site you should read the artist’ statement and view the very current work of waterston. oh my!!

if, like me you can’t afford one of waterston’s beautiful works then you might be interested to know that waterston’s work can be held in your hands and viewed as a retrospective through the acquisition of this book entitled "representing the invisible".