Artist's Statement
I seem to move through the world as if I am a character in a novel. Being an artist teaches one that there is always another canvas to paint.

The County Road Series titles of many of my paintings are not to be taken literally, while they may take their cues from names of Wisconsin roads, they are really metaphors for the paths I have traveled these many years as a painter.

Roads lead to destinations, some go through small towns and pass farmers fields, woodlots and lakes. Some roads are made of dirt, sea shells or maybe gravel, most macadam and many are concrete. The roads I have traveled throughout my life have been filled with joy and disappointment, therefore the crucial question to me has always been, "Does the road have a heart?" If it does not, then I have abandoned it. It is not an easy thing to do, often times it has been with fear, regret or reluctance, but always with the faith that there is an opportunity for discovery.

The Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz said; "If the road goes in, it must come out, and as the Emerald City is on the other end of the road, we must go wherever it leads us."

With the paintings titled County Road Y, it is the Y that is significant. The letter Y is a symbol for a fork in the road and the question I have always had to ask myself, "Which way shall I take?"

The North Fork landscapes began in the Spring of 2005 as I embarked on an journey filled with significant life changes. A new studio, a different academic relationship, and personal changes shaped this series of paintings.

The "Highway D" paintings developed in the Fall of 2005 and are a metaphor for an unexpected detour. Sometimes we travel the same road for years , it's the comfortable complacent route we have come to know. Then without warning we arrive at a detour. We are forced onto an unfamiliar road. We are afraid of getting lost or being late to our destination. Getting lost is not a bad thing. It is an opportunity to make discoveries; we find new sites, or in my case, insights. We find a new way to reach that which we are seeking.

The "Center Avenue" paintings were breakthrough paintings that I had been seeking for a long time. They leave the planned application of rules behind. They are my dance on a linen land of white lead and dreams that explode quickly without thinking of the steps. No choreography, just moving to my own rhythm. I have re-found my center.

My friend John Slorp sent me the following quote from Bodidharma, the bringer of Zen to China from India.

"Using the mind to look for reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation."

The series of paintings titled "In the Garden of Eden". represents the biblical garden. Joseph Campbell referred to Garden as the place of the historical rejection of the Mother Goddess. He wrote, "Our fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt, and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Every spontaneous act is seen as sinful and must not be yield to."

Evan Schwartz in his book Finding OZ writes, "The world's oldest forms of spirituality agree that the root of all our sorrow is the loss of contact with our true self. When this disconnect happens the world becomes governed by the seemingly unending rounds of birth and death, pain and pleasure, and happiness and suffering."

Swami Vivekananda wrote, "Our recovery is possible only by reestablishing contact with our true self."

"Rusted Hearts (Out on the Mexican Border)" is a recent series of paintings. They are about a lost relationship. This new work is a challenge. The paintings are exciting, but because of the heart forms I have to fight to keep spontaneity. Writing appears in these paintings and are keys to the nature of these works.

The band of color that cuts through the center of the paintings is the Rio Grande and represents the barrier of what kept us apart. The images of hearts and the borderlands of Mexico and Willy Nelson's Texas are metaphor.

The dancing movements of my brush and my spirit are critical to the the success of the paintings. They require splatters and drips, and most importantly the broken forms of broken dreams and broken hearts.

The new series of paintings that I am doing are entitled Gail’s Garden, they came a week after I spent the day at the Chicago Botanical Gardens with a woman I met in Chicago. I now realize just how inspired I was by the garden.

I reconnected with a garden. Ever since my marriage had fallen apart I had been divorced from gardening. It was something I always enjoyed and that day I became reacquainted with a part of myself.

These paintings are brighter and painted with a new palette of colors. There is no angst in the work, just joy and beauty. The surfaces are less intense, the brush stroke calmer and more certain.

All my work has to do with the internal landscapes of my being. The Y series was about coming to forks on the road of life, the ones where I could make choices. "Highway D" was about detours. At some moment in our journey we come to a point of direction that is forced upon us. Often this is an opening to great discovery. The "Center Avenue" series was about re-grouping to find my center, a place that gets lost from time to time to all of us. The "Garden of Eden" paintings concerns my struggle with the concept of good and evil and the religious dogma that gets in the way of finding truth and real self. "Rusted Hearts" started with a song I wrote. At first I thought it was about an old love, but in fact is was about the one I was with at the time; the one who had one foot on the platform and the other inside the train. Gail's Garden series is about renewal.


Terrence James Coffman


Terrence Coffman Center Avenue Studio