Jeff Dallas

I have a recurring dream where I suddenly remember the location of a powerful natural place-whether it’s an ancient mountain, a massive cave or thundering waterfall. The places are different but the dreams are the same.
These places feel profoundly ancient yet intensely “now”. Invariably, I feel like I’m the first person to ever see the place.
Located just outside the city, I am paradoxically amazed that I somehow forgot about the place.
Most importantly there is a pervasive sense of “awakeness” like the very air is alive.
I experience this feeling in my waking life when I first glimpse a powerful vista. I try to capture that first clear perception in my paintings by hiking to the place and painting on site. I finish the painting in my studio where the painting can dictate what it needs to become. As I work on the painting, some of the ways I abstract the image seem to become real and valid in themselves. I have the feeling of discovering something that was previously there but invisible. I feel like I’m peeling away layers of the place to get to a deeper reality. I feel like I’m both discovering this reality and co-creating it. The result is a conversation between the vivid nowness of my perception and the ancient vastness of the dream.