I ran this blog entry back in early March but wanted to run it again as we got closer to the opening of Truth and Belief, my solo show opening tomorrow at the Principle Gallery. I wanted to show this painting in its final form with the band of Indian yellow that now surrounds the central image. It was shown without this but I thought that this really added a bold kick to the piece that needed to be shown.
We have to balance the lineality of the known universe with the nonlineality of the unknown universe.
—Carlos Castaneda
******************
I am calling this new painting Balance (Known/Unknown). It is a 14″ by 32″ canvas and will have a slightly different edge detail that I will show at a later date. [It is shown with it here.]
The Carlos Castaneda quote above just reached out to me when I was looking at this piece. The Red Tree here seems to be standing at the edge of the known, the terrestrial world that is defined here with earthy color, solid forms, and dark lines– the lineal universe. Beyond it the non-lineal universe beckons, represented by a nebulous sky and a sun that acts as an unblinking eye.
It all is very much a metaphor for the purpose of art and that is to act as an intermediary between the known and the unknown, the go-between for that which is of our five senses and those things that go far beyond those senses.
Things that we feel in an emotional sense.
And that is what art often does, putting the deep feeling of that which we cannot see onto those things that we do see. It makes the intangible tangible.
That said, I like this new piece and have been enjoying my time with it. Every day I find a new angle within it that gives me pause, that excites me, and sets me thinking. And that is all I hope for in my work.
******************
There is also a nice article on this week’s edition of Technique Tuesday on the blog of the Principle Gallery, Principlearttalk. This article has to do with the history and use of stylization in art using my work as a contemporary example. It’s a good read. You can go to this article by clicking on the Technique Tuesday image above or by clicking here.
Redtree Times 