Jim Long’s faith in the random nature of the world and repetition of natural patterns in endlessly unique layers has permitted him to paint events few others even bother to look at. Since the beginning of self-awareness we have been fascinated by our relationship to, and place in, the natural world. The artist’s paintings are drawn from this age-old contemplation. His interest in chaos and space configuration allow for the development of visually intricate canvases through deceptively simple means.

Jim Long investigates the physical nature of paint on canvas, and the effects of the natural onslaught of time and the elements. Experiments in the late 1980s with mixing oil paint in a solution of water, rubbing alcohol and other materials that don’t mix led to the discovery of unexpected fractal imagery. These images were benchmarks for the artist, allowing him to make new and unexpected “pictures,” interchangeably field and figure.

With a relatively thin layer of paint, Long creates a stark visual texture; the simplest brushstrokes describe shadows from an imagined exterior light source. In addition to the six Seasons paintings, each of which, along with the ocean blue-green Perpetua (1999), explore a strong, slab-like illusion of relief, are six small-canvas studies through which the final images were determined.

Complementing the color-saturated series are the more somber black and white paintings, which reference earlier work that focused on circle perimeters that have now gravitated toward an interest in a more expansive space. Sarah Bowen Gallery will exhibit Heaven (1998), 87 1/2 ” x 92”, a pivotal painting that marks a return to large format imagery, and from which emerge the themes and imagery of the works in this exhibition. An essentially “found” image (as is all of the imagery the artist works with) Heaven looks backward to the 16th century and painters such as Cranach and Altdorfer as well as makes references to a supermarket tabloid photograph of Heaven taken by a NASA satellite.