Signs, Rivers, Days, Rays of Light

James Michael Pustorino

1990-97

Days

The Days Paintings were done in response to the light and daily seasonal changes. They were painted in a shed I built on an acre of yard at my mother-in-law’s in Ohio. The structure of the shed left one partly exposed to the elements. The roof was like a greenhouse and let air in. It was cold in the winter, very hot in the summer, grey when it rained. Each painting was named for the day of the season it was completed on.

Rivers

These paintings are from the series Signs, Rivers, Days and Rays of Light, completed in the 1990s. The Signs were conceived as doorways or portals, and were larger than body-size to give the sense that one could enter them physically. The signs themselves were the marks that stood in the way, the things one had to pass through or around. As the series evolved to the Rivers, the space became obscured by a veil of dark and light color flooding the front of the passage space. The Days set of work became about light itself, notes on the effects of the sun reflected in specific times of day and places. The focus eventually moved away from the observed nature and atmospheric radiance of the Days, and the ordering and re-ordering of light itself and its physical properties became the purpose of the exploration by the culmination of the Rays series.

Rays of Light

The Rays followed the Days and became more graphic as the set progressed.
I began to think of the lines as pure color equaling pure light and as describing an
endlessly complex space.