Jerald Alan

Artist’s Statement

Over the past years I have been working on a series of paintings in oil, acrylic, colored pencil and oil pastel mainly focusing on the environment around me. As this series has progressed I have gone from literal works based on buildings in St. Paul and Minneapolis, water lilies at Como Park in St. Paul, abstract forms around my apartment in East St. Paul and other ideas to abstract forms in a kind of cuneiform language like the one in this show and landscapes with abstract elements in them. Some are quite simple black abstractions and others, like the one in this show more complex.

This work is partly abstract with waves standing for water and the mountain quite literal. Without marks around it the round shape stands for the moon. The flowing wave at the bottom is symbolic or literal for falling water. I feel the painting speaks a language in and of itself.

My belief is that each of us is soul and the focus of art is to open up the treasures within each of us.

Some of my artwork comes from dreams and is often the starting or initial point of a piece of artwork. Some of my artwork is just what seems to flow from within me.

I hope you enjoy the artwork.

I have other examples of this type of form as well as abstract landscapes done with colored pencil. The example in this show is done on printing paper.