On Layering and Removal

Most of a painting is subtractive. The surface you finally see is what survived a long process of building and taking away. When I begin a landscape, I rarely know where the horizon will settle. I lay down color, let it dry, and then partially remove it — scraping, washing, sanding. What remains is a record of decisions: the ones I kept and the ones I erased. The traces of earlier layers are not mistakes. They are the painting's memory. A field of ochre beneath a field of blue is what gives the blue its weight. Without it, the surface would be flat and the atmosphere absent.