The day I met up with Don Voisine, I didn't really know what to expect. I showed him the recent work I'd done in class such as my belief system painting and my self portrait. He told me he'd look at my work the way any artist would look at it. Don didn't have anything negative to say. He politely asked what my methods and thought processes were as I was making them. I also showed him my sketchbook. As he was paging through it, he'd stop and comment. He seemed to like my line studies. He also seemed interested in all the pages that had color, which was no surprise given the subject matter of his own work.
I wasn't able to stay for his entire lecture. I could tell that he was nervous and wasn't very comfortable speaking at the podium. I could symphathize because I'm the same way. We both belong in a studio, not in public speaking. Despite his nervousness,I could tell that he is passionate about what he does as he told us a brief biography of his life and work. He told us he didn't feel the need to paint what everyone else was when he was studying art. All of his paintings in the gallery were color blocks,basically abstracts, and that he'd been doing them for a long time. his paintings consisted of two color blocks contrasted on wood. They were like feelings or colors you could find in nature,stripped down to only the basic color pallete.
Personally, his paintings didn't really move me in anyway other than the sheer numbers of them.
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Yes, some good observatons here regarding Don, his personality, his way of presenting himself as an artist. Regarding his work, the more one is familiar with the history of abstract painting, particular the focus on non-objective painting in the sixties – his foramtive years – the more you can get out of the work. What struck me about them was his sensitivity to the sheen of the paint surface and how the blacks changed as you looked at the paintings from different angels, changing from black to gray and merging with the adjacent colored panels as the light angle changes. Quiet works that speak loudly once you tune into them.
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