Jeff Way
The recent series of paintings, Grid Heads, achieves a synthesis of various formal ideas and imagery, which have engaged me for the past 35 years. The grid was an organizing structure that was used in my abstract ìchalk lineî paintings from the early 70ís to reinforce the sense of the picture plane. Heads have been a major motif in my paintings and mask making has been an important aspect of my work for the past 30 years.
The Grid Head is a mask-like face comprised of overlapping bands of color and minimal features-just eyes and nose. It is at once no one, someone, and everyone. The grid is extended to surrounding drapery, which billows and folds as the head bends, stretches, and twists in space. The grid normally provides a sense of structure and stability. In these paintings it becomes completely destabilized. Color continues to be a major element in these paintings intensifying the emotional and psychological aspects of the work