Your work has a beguiling simplicity that becomes more complex the closer it is viewed. Chuck Close famously deconstructed the CMYK printing process in the 70’s and created photographically perfect reconstructions of printer’s plates, color proof by color proof. Your work extends that practice but where Close aimed for unshakeable accuracy, you have allowed the hand more power to obfusticate and remind us of what these are, paintings. And whereas Close focused on faces, you offer a wider experiential view with seemingly random images of, presumably, your life.
The color shifts from reality to the paper are fascinating, possibly a struggle between what you see from the source and where your hand guides you. The drips and dribbles further emphasize the painterliness in what must have required long passages of intense control. Most artists with highly developed technical skills create massive tours-de-force as a way of demonstrating their exceptional ability, an expression of the joy at being able to do such things, for instance doing mountains and landscapes with majesty and drama rather than a prosaic high rise building (Forever, the Union). In ‘Soldering’ we are sitting in a car and any moment a robber is going to push past the person in the purple shirt standing in the door of the liquor store and run toward us. You have captured a moment that has unlimited possibilities rather than a vista that remains static. The everyday situations offer a ‘grunge’ sensibility perhaps that is no less eloquent for it’s effectiveness.

One of the ways I evaluate an artist’s work is to see if work has a discipline and practice that will sustain the artist over the long run. I feel your work has this quality. Although I’m not sure what significance CMYK separations have for you – or why that is important for the work, and why your audience should care about it and even if it is something you should hold on to. However, it seems to be serving a purpose for now, as I can see a definite stylistic integrity. Where I sense a struggle, and where the work is a bit lost is with the subject matter and your approach to content. I get the sense with works such as ‘Points on a Circle’ that you are asking yourself - do I stretch for a narrative? Do I leave it all to mystery and fog? With works like ‘Removing the Stone’ and ‘Soldering’ I get the sense you are asking – isn’t banality all there is? And perhaps a lot can be found there, and should be explored further. The successful merger of subject and technique can be a wonderful catalyst to keep your artistic enterprise growing. Your work has a cool detachment a la Ruscha – like him there’s no blood and guts from emotion, more of an intellectual curiosity from some rather dry, although suggestive and worthy, material.

An interesting twist on the use of the computer as tool in contemporary painting. While there are a number of artists using various applications to create compositions for transfer to canvas, I do not recall an artist imitating the actual mechanical inkjet process. I suspect that both scale and banal subject matter have been chosen consciously in order to turn the viewer's attention to Mr. Hougen's unusual technique. It must be very satisfying to be able to examine these works up close if process is revealed as noted in the artist's statement. Considering the bigger picture, I have no doubt these watercolors have great presence based on scale alone. While choice of subject matter may have been dictated by a desire to focus the viewer on technique, I applaud the artist for selecting and then monumentalizing such mundane material. We can appreciate not only the perversity of his dedicating what must be an extraordinary amount of time and energy towards the rendering of an 83" by 57" exit sign, but also his choice to memorialize un unremarkable slice of life...moments which make up the vast majority of our days.