I was in the new Border’s on Boylston Street on Friday and picked up a large book on Alex Katz— and was incredibly impressed.
I’ve been interested in Katz for a long time— albeit more for his connection to the New York School poets than anything else— but besides a passing appreciation, I hadn’t been exposed to much of his work. Of course, I love the image of Kenneth Koch from the cover of his “Collected” (as pictured above, and borrowed from Amazon.com), as well as some other images of O’Hara and others Katz has done— but, bottom line, I didn’t realize that I was pursuing a lot of the same ideas as him.
His use of bright colors, and some of the composition elements— being the interplay between the figures and the landscape— caught me right away. As did the incredible scale of some of his work; it had me fantasizing of 12 foot long canvases.
One of the first images I opened to was “Eleuthera” (as pictured above, and borrowed from his website at AlexKatz.com). It was hard for me not to find some similarities between this work and my, “Coast to Coast” from this year. See pic above.
I’ve been interested in Katz for a long time— albeit more for his connection to the New York School poets than anything else— but besides a passing appreciation, I hadn’t been exposed to much of his work. Of course, I love the image of Kenneth Koch from the cover of his “Collected” (as pictured above, and borrowed from Amazon.com), as well as some other images of O’Hara and others Katz has done— but, bottom line, I didn’t realize that I was pursuing a lot of the same ideas as him.
His use of bright colors, and some of the composition elements— being the interplay between the figures and the landscape— caught me right away. As did the incredible scale of some of his work; it had me fantasizing of 12 foot long canvases.
One of the first images I opened to was “Eleuthera” (as pictured above, and borrowed from his website at AlexKatz.com). It was hard for me not to find some similarities between this work and my, “Coast to Coast” from this year. See pic above.
I know they are very different in many ways- and I admit, I was a little stunned to find the 2 women in bathing suits, close-cropped on the canvas, and flat colors; but I do think the palette, the flatness, and the relation of figure and space is something I seem to be chasing Katz on; he is combining these ideas ideally. It is fun to see the similarity though.
I say this humbly, and use the word similarity on purpose. Obviously I am doing some work in layering and obviously Katz is amazing. It occurs to me that as people read this blog (versus private words in a journal) they might think that I am comparing myself to Katz, or de Kooning, or whomever I mention. Rather, I find it fascinating to catch these similarities and approach— there is truly nothing new in Art, but a different combining of the pieces— color, line, shape, tone, composition, texture, etc… So, when I stumble upon something in my art or someone else’s that resonates, I think about it and am fascinated with the connections.
In other news, tonight I worked on a watercolor— much smaller in size than my canvases (about 11 ¾ “ by 15 ¾”). It has a working title of “Fire and Ice.” Over the past few days I became occupied with the ideas of reds and blues (associated with heat and cold as well as “red” states and “blue” states in our political vernacular). While I am certainly no political Artist or poet (mostly because it is so hard to be good at), this connection between red and blue and the platforms (death by terror-bombing versus death by environmental catastrophe) each major party seems to be running on, had me also thinking of the Robert Frost poem “Fire and Ice.”
The watercolor uses some images from a recent National Geographic on global warming, and some images from an Air Force magazine circa 1944— as well as text from the Frost poem. Not only have I thought a lot about doing some smaller works on paper, I am also currently in discussions about participating in a 3-person show in the late Fall, and I am interesting in combining some of these smaller pen and ink/watercolor works with the larger canvases.
There is a picture of the in progress “Fire and Ice” above.
I say this humbly, and use the word similarity on purpose. Obviously I am doing some work in layering and obviously Katz is amazing. It occurs to me that as people read this blog (versus private words in a journal) they might think that I am comparing myself to Katz, or de Kooning, or whomever I mention. Rather, I find it fascinating to catch these similarities and approach— there is truly nothing new in Art, but a different combining of the pieces— color, line, shape, tone, composition, texture, etc… So, when I stumble upon something in my art or someone else’s that resonates, I think about it and am fascinated with the connections.
In other news, tonight I worked on a watercolor— much smaller in size than my canvases (about 11 ¾ “ by 15 ¾”). It has a working title of “Fire and Ice.” Over the past few days I became occupied with the ideas of reds and blues (associated with heat and cold as well as “red” states and “blue” states in our political vernacular). While I am certainly no political Artist or poet (mostly because it is so hard to be good at), this connection between red and blue and the platforms (death by terror-bombing versus death by environmental catastrophe) each major party seems to be running on, had me also thinking of the Robert Frost poem “Fire and Ice.”
The watercolor uses some images from a recent National Geographic on global warming, and some images from an Air Force magazine circa 1944— as well as text from the Frost poem. Not only have I thought a lot about doing some smaller works on paper, I am also currently in discussions about participating in a 3-person show in the late Fall, and I am interesting in combining some of these smaller pen and ink/watercolor works with the larger canvases.
There is a picture of the in progress “Fire and Ice” above.
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