Above see some pictures of a new work in progress over the past few days. The piece is untitled as of now, and is acrylic paint on canvas— 36” x 60”
The pictures are over the past few days— you can see the progress of the composition being finalized and the colors starting to get laid down.
Have been working and working and working on some ideas for a series that I am calling “Reading Material” (in my head at least) that is, doing some further looking into material culture, consumerism, etc.
This one won’t be a collage (for now, unless I take a different direction), but I am more and more fascinated with this idea of borrowing from catalogs and their layouts. It is a great composition device, I think— and gives me the opportunity to really focus on color and line a lot, a lot, a lot.
I have repeated a word three times, twice so far in this blog post.
The name of my next book? Three Times Twice
Or: Three Times, Twice
Moving on, I think it is just impossible for me to deny the huge influence Matisse has on this approach any longer. In fact, I started wondering about using the rhythm of some textile patterns in the background to enhance the music and rhythm of the colors as he did, but I scrapped it (at least for now). Instead, I just love the use of the flat color against the curve of line.
As with all my bigger paintings, especially, I have spent a lot of time just looking at this. Painting and stopping and looking. The bigger paintings in progress become like people who live in my studio with me for a while. It is strange. And wonderful.
Like almost all of my work, I get a little uncertain before I begin. I spend considerable time on researching ideas and playing with different approaches. For this “Reading Material” series I have worked on studying store windows, and catalogs, and experimenting with collage elements.
When I began on this one, I wasn’t sure if it was the right direction or not. It seemed strange to abandon collage, even for a single piece. And, I couldn’t help but think, “who paints a painting of a catalog?”
Well, I do.
And as the painting gains strength, as the good ones do, it is becoming more and more obvious that this is entirely the right direction. It seems like the moment before I actually touch the canvas I am nervous and uncertain, and in the right ones the energy sweeps me up right away and grows and grows as I begin work.
There are so many ideas operating here that I love. The most obvious, maybe, is the use of the ordinary object enlarged and pleading to be recognized in a different context. Just last night I was positive, certain, of the need for painting as a major art pursuit. If not the most major. While there are some who might argue that de Kooning killed painting for all of us— or that sculpture, multi-media, installation, is the wave of the future, I realized that with all the bombarding of images (throw-away papers and magazines, tv images and internet content whizzing by), that painting— the escalation of a still image to art status— may be the only way to elevate the base of all these mediums to the sublime. In short, it is not the introduction of all these mediums that has killed painting, but rather their introduction has made painting more essential and powerful. Where else are we asked, or even allowed, to stop and truly consider a single image any longer?
So, for all that I love this work so far. I love the elements of stained-glass that its final version will call to. I love the blocks of color interacting (as Rothko said his colors were like actors in a drama— I feel that here). I love the idea of painting the last gasp of something (catalogs are certainly almost dead— as companies find the savings of producing content on the internet) and preserving it. I find myself straining to stay focused on this one, and loving it at the same time— but already this approach seems to be wanting to burst into a series.
This is probably enough babble and analysis. One last thing is how working on this— the composition— reminded me of Egyptian art and hieroglyphics I’d seen. Something like the Egyptian Book of the Dead (pictured above from
www.inspiredplanet.com/oasis.html).
I couldn’t help but wonder if Osiris might jump from one of these images, or if the advanced culture of the Egyptians was actually more focused on selling clothing than we had imagined. Maybe the “Book of the Dead” is truly a “Summer Clearance.”
See another image above from National Geographic’s Expedition Egypt with a focus on the Valley of the Kings:
www.nationalgeographic.com/egyptjournal/photogalleries/valley/index.htmlFor me, this connection only pushes forward this idea of painting relics— or the relics of our culture. And it all fits in for me on considering image and the power of image, both in our society, as well as hanging on a wall.
