SAM AMATO

My current work now exhibited at the Fig Gallery at the Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, Ca. is not easy to define.  There are different ways of viewing and interpreting this work.  It breaks down into different components that appear linked to nature as its point of reference and departure.  However, looking further at the body of these paintings on exhibit different components not conventionally associated with nature material assert themselves.  The focus begins shifting.   The nature theme is surrounded by other issues.  Together the work shares an apparent unity and then speculations arise as to what these paintings might be about.  The scale of flowers so blown up in some of the work.  Why?  Why the absorption in single flowers?  Flowers examined closely bear a wonderful resemblance to Eastern mandalas.  The inner and the outer.  That is how I see many flowers.  Some paintings are configurations of nature visible for the space of a few seconds.  Some of the images suggest that flowers may show signs of suffering and anguish.  There may be psychological and philosophical elements in this work.  The force and presence of color provides the vitality to whatever is original in these paintings.  This work was an important creative experience for me.  The unknowable no less than the knowable.

Sam Amato, 2010