David Carmack Lewis: Oils
My work has gone through many changes over the years. This is no more than any artist should expect. But on the whole it is the continuities in an artist’s work that are more generally significant. In my own paintings the most obvious of these is a sense of narrative.
I began my career as an illustrator and in some ways I continue to be drawn to the narrative arts more than I am to the purely visual. But as a single isolated image, a painting cannot construct the kind of narratives that we are used to, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Instead my work relates more to the kind of narrative that exists in medieval iconography, where an event is depicted not for the sake or strength of it’s plot but for the resonance the described event might have for the contemplative viewer. In this kind of narrative every element may be a symbol for something else, and the story told is the viewer’s own.
For a long time my visual style was also partially influenced by this medieval imagery, especially the dramatic sense of line one sees in old woodcuts. The dark lines in my work occasionally grew into bold shadows. Then the shadows engulfed everything.
Night fell in my paintings. Figures have also mysteriously vanished, although the human presence remains tantalizingly close. They seem to have stepped outside the frames of these stories just for a moment.
There is aspect to this more recent work that reminds me of an inverse of impressionism. Where the impressionists saw a world of pure light fractured into subtle color, I seem to be painting a world of darkness only partially and imperfectly revealed by light. And fires.
I love fires. And it is in the dark, huddled around the rather dim and flickering light of a fire, that stories were first told.

cDavid Carmack Lewis, June 2006
My work has gone through many changes over the years. This is no more than any artist should expect. But on the whole it is the continuities in an artist’s work that are more generally significant. In my own paintings the most obvious of these is a sense of narrative.
I began my career as an illustrator and in some ways I continue to be drawn to the narrative arts more than I am to the purely visual. But as a single isolated image, a painting cannot construct the kind of narratives that we are used to, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Instead my work relates more to the kind of narrative that exists in medieval iconography, where an event is depicted not for the sake or strength of it’s plot but for the resonance the described event might have for the contemplative viewer. In this kind of narrative every element may be a symbol for something else, and the story told is the viewer’s own.
For a long time my visual style was also partially influenced by this medieval imagery, especially the dramatic sense of line one sees in old woodcuts. The dark lines in my work occasionally grew into bold shadows. Then the shadows engulfed everything.
Night fell in my paintings. Figures have also mysteriously vanished, although the human presence remains tantalizingly close. They seem to have stepped outside the frames of these stories just for a moment.
There is aspect to this more recent work that reminds me of an inverse of impressionism. Where the impressionists saw a world of pure light fractured into subtle color, I seem to be painting a world of darkness only partially and imperfectly revealed by light. And fires.
I love fires. And it is in the dark, huddled around the rather dim and flickering light of a fire, that stories were first told.

cDavid Carmack Lewis, June 2006
quARTerly Volume #3 #4 page 35

Welcome to this issue of the quarterly, celebrating visual
artists and the community they define. As residents, we revel in
Oregon’s geographic diversity as well as the varied ethnicity of our 
population. The art that is produced in our community reflects that
same spectrum. Our art is not corralled into a single Eurocentric,
academic precept, limited by axioms from other times. Rather, our art
is open, inclusive, as innovative as it is disciplined.

quarterly is intended to increase the visibility of our local visual
artists. Artists are often reclusive by nature. Their muse speaks
privately. So they remove themselves from the hubbub of the marketplace
in order to create, not to promote. While performance artists look for
a stage, visual artists are more inclined to look for a cave with
northern exposure. Moreover the visual artist will hang up a sign that
says: “nobody home.”

quarterly is to serve these artists.  They are our living treasures,
our scribes, our oracles, our enlight-ening fools who, knowingly or
not, challenge the way we see things. In their pursuit of art, they
enrich the quality of our life in Oregon. This, then, is their picture
book, a folio, as well as a forum for their industry. We are blessed
with a bounty of gifted, world-class artists, more than our local
market can support.

quarterly may help nurture their appreciation as well as engender the
growth of a larger market to sustain them. It has been proven that art
puts communities on the map.

quarterly advertisers will be the real heroes. They will be paying for
the ink and the paper, as well as all that elegant empty space. These
advertisers must believe that the husbandry of art is a community
responsibility.  I thank my editors, and guest writers Laurel Fisher,
John Rose, Dottie Chase, Judith Roberts and Art Maddox and Jerry Ross. 
Thank you  J Thibeau for the nam. And thank you most of all, Connie
Clark in Tryon, North Carolina, for putting it all into a proper form. 
Cheers

Jerry Williams,
Professor Emeritus
Quixoticus
Theatre Arts, Villard
University of Oregon
541-687-0493




Jerry Williams