Don Gray paintings

"This painting exemplifies my love of art books and everyday objects as subjects for still-life. I did not paint any lettering on the books and cans because I did not want to distract from the solidity of their elemental forms. In other paintings, I have painted the lettering. I literally heaped these objects together any which way, reflecting a certain desire at the time for haphazardness. However, I was also interested in exploring and developing my realist technique. So, despite the tipping of objects, there is great order created by the focused realism. While I went as far as graduate school in painting, and learned how to ‘see’ as an undergraduate, I literally had to teach myself how to paint after I got out of college because nowhere was I taught much technique. This is a problem facing artists who desire to be significant realists. Too often, we are either not taught techniques, or are taught painting formulas that doom originality."