-Perfect Circle Drawings-
This series of "Perfect Circle" drawings extends and complements a series of paintings completed In 1999, and a series of monoprints completed In 2000. They are on 40 X 60" Arches Cold Press watercolor paper and combine the use of gouache, graphite, chalk, watercolor, charcoal, oil stick and acrylic. They make use of a single "man-made" symbol for each drawing, such as the sign for infinity, the dollar sign, the pt sign, etc., drawn over and over again. I layered the images until their accumulation produced another symbolic form and/or spatial relationship that references another symbolic form, e.g., a cross. The sign appears to be Infinitely applied; it is infinitely present. Juxtaposed on this abstract field are selected images from the natural world, e.g., fish, monkeys, birds, snakes, humans, etc., usually drawn in contour line. Each of these images from nature possesses their own signification, and when Juxtaposed upon the abstract field of manmade forms, challenge the viewer to apply meaning. Finally, a hand drawn (imperfect) circle is repeatedly applied at strategic locations, extending the analysis of each drawing. This series is ongoing; there are 9 drawings so far in this progressing group, with more to come.
In posing a dialectic between the constructed world and the natural world, and placing "between" these worlds a syn-tbol of the absolute (the "Imperfect" perfect circle), I am offering the potential for creative symbiotic resolution on the part of the spectator. 1, personally, am interested in moments of slippage, where all Is possible and nothing makes sense. Where meaning becomes nonsense and nonsense becomes knowing. Language has as Its passion definitions. Art possesses the tncominensurablItty of passion itself. My work offers a process of agnostic knowing. I do not "know" the work's meaning. Abstraction, not as an end in Itself, serves the purpose of providing a way to extract and compose sensation rather than meanings. Abstraction allows me to passionately embrace Interpretation. Not the interpretation of meaning, but an Inspection or Investigation of the 1 nterpretive act itself. (Do we know? We never knoW. We only kel that we know.) These works, conceived as total process and resulting in abstract fields, deal with movements of slippage.

-Perfect Circle Prints-
Perfect Circle: Utopic and Dystopic Fields, 1995-2002
There are presently 160 6 X I 1 11 Intaglio monoprints In "Utopic Field" and 80 8 X 1011 Intaglio monoprints In "Dystopic Field." These prints are layered and multicolored, being pulled by me from one to six copper and zinc plates on Dutch Etching paper. The series was begun In January 1995 while I was on sabbatical leave from teaching. During this sabbatical period,, I also made an extended trip to Italy where I began an extensive survey of art that started In Pompeii and ended In Cologne, Germany. The exposure to Medieval, Renaissance, Modern and Contemporary art of Europe greatly Influenced the further progress of these Intaglio monoprints. Upon my return to the United States, I Immediately Introduced two "found" Images (from found Intaglio plates) Into the series: a I 9th century "robber baron" castle Into "Utopic Field,11and a 1950's advertisement for an Industrial fan Into "Dystopic Field.91 Color selections were heavily Influenced by my trip abroad, and the circle became more dominant. They have been hung In a Installation (grid format) of all 160 prints on one wall and all 80 prints on another wall, In smaller Installations (also In grid format or horizontal and vertical lines) and singularly, framed and unframed, at several locations In New York Japan, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series will continue after I have completed my next series of drawings and paintings, thereby being Influenced by further process.

William C.- Maxwell 2003