Inside Aries: Making Sense of a Complicated Self

There is a line I wrote about Aries that still feels right to me: “M. examines the aspects of self — taking the complex and complicating it further.”

Which is a roundabout way of admitting I did not make a painting that comes with a neat set of instructions.

Aries is an original work in acrylic, oil stick and oil pastel on canvas. Those materials leave different kinds of evidence behind. Paint can cover a thought. A line can cut through it. Something that seemed important at one point can end up half-hidden beneath whatever came next. I like that you can still sense the conversation between those decisions.

The title gives the work a name, but it is not a key that unlocks every part of it. I am interested in what happens when images, words and marks meet on a canvas without politely agreeing with one another. Some elements pull you closer; others refuse to explain themselves. That tension is part of the work.

We tend to talk about the self as though it is one settled thing. Most days, it feels more like a collection of contradictions: the person we think we are, the person someone else sees, and all the unfinished versions in between. Aries lives somewhere in that crowded space.

You may find a figure, a joke, a memory, or something I never intended at all. I am comfortable with that. Your reading does not need my permission to be real. The moment a painting leaves the studio, it begins having conversations I am not in the room for.

The original Aries has sold. The painting remains part of the Art of M. story, and I still want people to be able to spend time with it. Look closely. Let one detail lead you to another. Then tell me what you see. I am curious, and I reserve the right to be surprised.