Terry Craig’s work is landscape-based abstraction. It has its roots in Kandinsky, who was among the first modern artists to realize the potential of abstract painting as a means of expressing the artist’s personal connection with the world.
He eventually arrived at an art, which used the elements of painting not to represent nature, but to present the artist’s spiritual response to it. A place where the outer world and inner world work together to produce that expression.
In the post-modern era, many regard a spiritual approach to art as suspect, either hopelessly outdated and naïve or, worse, pretentious and self-servingly grandiose. However Craig continues to think of art making in spiritual terms – painting amounts to a devotional act for him.
His work may be tranquil, meditative, and joyous, or a struggle full of hesitancy and doubt.
Over the past couple of years Craig has been drawn to more heavily textured work.
At first he started building up layer after layer of paint, later using oils in combination with other materials such as enamels, varnishes, and marble dust.
Craig loves the beautiful object. He believes beauty can be uplifting. He paints over the surface looking for something more, something deeper than a sort of glorified wallpaper.
The poet Don Marquis once said, “All my life I have searched for a thing I cannot name”. “That’s what I’m after, I guess. That thing I cannot name”.
