Sometimes paintings take several years and multiple iterations to find their final form, and sometimes they come together very quickly. The Hand That Takes is one of the latter.

If you break the painting down into its component parts, you could say there was a long gestation period. I took the photograph that appears in the middle of the painting in 1989. The hand on the left is a photocopy, enlarged over and over again from an image of a neoclassical sculpture, and dates to around the same time.

The painting itself was executed in 2005, and if memory serves, I completed it in one or two short sessions. A good friend (who is now the owner of the painting) came by my studio while it was still sitting on the easel. It was dry, but I was pondering what else might need to be done to it.

“It’s finished,” he said. “Resist the urge to go in and tweak it,” he added, knowing full well how sometimes my intended minor adjustments become major changes.

I took the canvas off the easel and agreed to set it aside. I let it sit where I could see it and moved on to another painting. A few weeks later I came to agree that he was right.

The Hand That Takes
Acrylic, photograph and collage on canvas
22″ x 28″
2005
SOLD