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Posts Tagged ‘New Paintings’

Seat of Memory

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This small painting is titled Seat of Memory.  It’s a new piece on paper that measures about 6″ by 8″ and is due to be part of my upcoming show, Now and Then,  at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  The show opens June 10.

The title of this piece and  show  refers to memory, a subject that has often been portrayed in my work recently.  Memory and history are often interchangeable in my thinking as I view both as that thread, that continuum, that ties our present and past.  That which gives our now definition and perspective.  The list of ingredients, the recipe, for the concoction we call the present time.

You hear a lot of people say that one must live only in the present and I see the wisdom in that.  But I think there is value in holding on to and examining that thread of memory and history, if only to see those patterns in our behaviors that remain consistent over time so we can avoid making the same mistakes over and over, in the present and in the future.  There’s a great quote on this but I can’t remember the exact quote or even whose words they are.  It goes something like: He who disregards history lives every day as a child.  Every step is a new step.  Every discovery a new discovery.  Every stumble a new stumble.

I view my painting as a way of bringing the past into a perpetual now.  I want them to always feel as they portray the present but are firmly rooted in a visible history.  By that I mean that I want people to see the work with childish eyes of discovery, as though it feels completely new to them.  But at the same time I want them to feel a sense of familiarity in the work.  Maybe the familiarity of a shared history, common memory.

I don’t know if that’s something I can do with my work.  I don’t even know if that’s something I should be trying to accomplish.  But when I look at a simply put piece like the Seat of Memory it gives me hope that maybe I am on the right road.

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Valley Bountiful

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on April 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

I am calling this painting Valley Bountiful.  It’s a new 30″ by 30″ canvas that is a continuance of a recent group of work that focuses on the patterned fields and tree groupings that make up the foreground, all feeding to the central figure of the Red Tree. 

I’m really enjoying this recent streak of work.  There’s a sense of fullness, or completeness, in these pieces that really gratifies me.  I see this in the density of the color,  in the depth of the picture plane into which the scene pushes and in the way the fields comes together.

  I may not be able to explain what I fully mean by the word fullness here.  Maybe it feels as though there is a sense of self-containment in the piece, an autonomy that allows the painting to live fully on its own in its own self-described world.  I have always described a piece as being successful if it takes on a life of its own, to have their own voice and vocabulary and existing in their own time and place.  These pieces seem to fully embody this.  They seem fully alive, dwelling completely in their own idealized world.

All that I can ask.

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Fork

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on April 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

Another new black and white, or gray, piece, this one an image of about 7″ by 11″.  I call this painting Fork because of the repetitive form of the fork seen in the path as it splits and in the the tree as it reaches upward.

The sun here is oversized, something I have often employed in my work, to create a dramatic visual quality, a sense of immediacy in the moment.  As though it is a guide of sorts, hovering above and reminding the traveler that every decision, small or large, takes them in a new direction, some far afield from where they currently stand.  The sun is not menacing in this position that it maintains.  No, it’s immediacy is more of an urging to see the significance of the ordinary, the importance of seemingly small decisions and thoughts.

Recognize where you are and what is before you, in both a physical and spiritual sense.  The tree here represents the spiritual or mental aspect of this.  Just as the traveler comes to a fork and takes one of the paths which determines what they will see and experience, we make judgments each day, on nearly everything, which shapes how we view everything that we see and experience.

As I always say, this is only how I see this piece.  You may not see it that way.  You may see something completely different or nothing at all but a simple composition.  All are valid.  Art often falls in that gray area.

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Sirensong

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on April 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Here is another new painting that is a continuation of the recent work.  This piece that I am calling Sirensong for the time being, is about a 17″ by 25″ image on paper.   The fact that it’s on paper makes a difference in the feel of the piece for me.  The exposed edges create a beginning and an end to the scene and make the painting seem less like a painting than an object.  This gives it a real sense of  self-contained completeness, a quality that really appeals to me personally.

The last piece I showed a few posts back had a similar composition with the red tree as the  very central figure , standing steadfast and strong in its beliefs and hopes.  This piece has a slightly different feel for me.  I see the central red tree here not as the hopeful figure of the last painting but as the object of and reason for hope and belief.  The last painting showed the seeker and this piece, that which is sought.

Perhaps it is something as simple as the narrow body of water that separates the tree from the landscape in the foreground that creates this distinction.  The path that winds toward it goes enigmatically around the final visible hillside before the water and leaves one to wonder if the path indeed finds a way to that tree or if it remains distant and unattainable across a watery barrier.

The last piece also seemed to be in the moment, now.  Sirensong seems to me to be in the next moment, an ideal of the future that, as its name implies, pulls us always forward while always remaining slightly elusive.

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Simple?

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on April 11, 2011| 11 Comments »

This is a new piece, a 24″ by 30″ canvas,  that I recently completed.  It’s a very dense painting, filled with a lot of compositional elements and deep colors.   Far from some of my more sparse landscapes, there seems to be a lot going on here visually but I think that there is still a great sense of quietude and stillness in this piece.  Perhaps this is captured in the darkness of the sky with the brighter light of the sun breaking over the distant hills.

There’s something I really like in this piece that I can’t put my finger on at the moment.  There’s a certain earnestness in it that I find attractive.  Maybe earnest is not the right word.  Unaffected innocence?  Naive?  Uncynical? I don’t know.  This is one of those many times when I find myself struggling to describe what I see in a piece. 

The one word that does come to mind is unwavering.  I don’t know if I see that in the context of unwavering innocence or unwavering belief but there is a quality of solidness in this painting that brings up the word.  Steadfast.  Assured of what it is and its place in the world.  Unpretentious.

You know, for a piece that I describe as possibly naive and earnest, I’m having a hell of a time capturing how I’m seeing it.  Any help?

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Breaking Light

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on April 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This 18″ by 18″  painting is a continuation of the new work I’ve been featuring here the past few weeks, work that highlights the clouds in the sky above.  Most have been very upbeat, almost jubilant, in their feel but this one has a darker tone underneath, accentuated by the second layer of dark blue cloud silhouettes through which the light breaks.  This creates a pool of light, a bit of breaking hope,  in the center surrounded by the dark clouds.

The deep red of the field in the foreground also adds a foreboding quality to this piece, creating a dark contrast to the lighter fields in the middleground.  It also provides a strong, earthy foundation on which the entire composition rests, creating a real sense of strength for me in the whole piece.

This piece feels more contemplative, more introverted, than the other recent cloud pieces, even though there is a lot of color and activity in the composition.  There is still a naive quality but it is not exuberantly optimistic.  It is more guarded in its optimism, wavering in its own absolute belief in anything.  Almost wary and questioning of the breaking light, as though not sure it is a lasting hope.

I keep finding more to say about this piece as I look at it but I think I should just let it say what it will without my words.

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Antithesis

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on March 28, 2011| 3 Comments »

This is a new painting that is a variation of the new work I showed here last week.  If you read yesterday’s post you’ll probably recognize the the look and feel of this piece as being the antithesis to the feelings I was experiencing myself and seeing in the darker work of Grosz.  This is a painting that is forward looking and filled with positivism.  Oh, it has dark edges and traces of something ominous lurking beneath the surface of the colors but it takes an optimistic, almost triumphant stance.

This is a larger painting, 24″ high by 48″ wide, and just glows in the studio amid the other strongly colored work around it.  The color is vibrant and bold and decisive.  It puts itself forward and demands that you look at it whether you like it or not.  And I think this is a piece with which the viewer will make that decision very quickly.  I don’t think there’s a lot of middle ground here.  It is demanding and not subtle, not for those who seek something that blends into its surroundings. 

But it is in the same vein as the bulk of my work.  Despite its bold feel, it is filled with quiet and space.  The quiet is a bit different, like an exultant outward quiet rather than an introverted, examining quiet.  I don’t know if there is actually such a difference in magnitude of quiets but if there is, this painting is of the more vibrant, even loud,  sort of quiet.

I also see this as being very empowered.  The central figure of the red tree is beneath a large sky and a vast open landscape but doesn’t seem overpowered or overwhelmed by its place in this scenario.  It seems to be larger than life and defiant of the clouds above, pushing them away to claim its view of the sky.  In fact, I call this painting Push Away the Clouds. 

As my words attest, I feel pretty strongly about this piece.  Whether others will see it in the same way is beyond my control so I’m not worrying about it at the moment.  For now, I’m using it to pushing away my own clouds.

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Cloud Jubilation

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I have been pretty busy at the easel lately.  I’ve been getting into a decent rhythm where one thing quickly leads to another, one creative spark jumping up toward the next tree.  This is the result of one of these wildfires.

Measuring 24″ by 24″ on canvas, this new painting has been a pretty vibrant addition to the studio.  It has excited me visually with its vibrancy of color and the massing of the clouds in the sky creates a different atmosphere than my often clear and empty skies.   It just seems brighter and more optimistic in nature, more extroverted.  While the red tree is still the central figure and stands alone and different, I don’t get the sense that there is exclusion here.  Rather I sense inclusion, a feeling of connection to the world around it with the clouds being almost celebratory above and the surrounding trees willing witnesses.  Jubilation is word that comes to mind for me.  A sense of joy in just being alive.

This piece has a very intoxicating quality in the studio.  I am constantly pulled to it which both excites me and makes me wary, suspicious of my own initial strong  response to the work.  I have been doggedly trying to find fault in it to give me a reason to curtail this excitement in case it is a mere episode of color intoxication, where I get somewhat mesmerized by the colors I am working with and can’t objectively see the work in its entirety. 

But this work seems to fit, seems to belong in the continuum of my work.  There is part of me that is pushing towards rushing into a series of this work while part of me is telling me to slow down and give it time.  But the rushed part is winning, seeing new takes and twists in this work with which  it’s itching to forge ahead.  I’m already well into another of this series. 

Well, maybe a series.  Only time will tell.  But for the time being, I’m drunkenly enjoying this painting.

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The Dark Rise

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on March 8, 2011| 6 Comments »

This was a case of a painting dictating what is was to be, against my efforts to make it otherwise. 

 This new 24″ by 24″ canvas grew slowly and once I was painting  in the sky I kept telling myself that it had to be lighter and lighter.  Since  2002 when I was featuring paintings that featured darker tones (referred to as my “dark work“), I have resisted working in this series.  That work was not as well received as most of my work  and I was responding to the market.  Personally, I felt that this was very strong work, work that excited my sensibilities.  But if they had no place in the galleries, I was hesitant to spend my time on the work.

So when I was in the midst of this piece I began to naturally steer away from the darkness that marked these earlier works.  I saw the sky as being brighter and having high contrast but with each stroke there was a nagging feeling that that was not what was meant for this piece.  I went so far as to load my palette with lighter colors and stand, brush in hand, before the canvas, ready to change this painting in a way that would alter everything about it.

But there was something that told me to stop, that this was where the sky stopped, that this was the destination.  This was what this piece was meant to be.  I stepped back and put down the palette.  It would stay dark.

Now, maybe this will not fit into the marketplace for my work but that doesn’t matter.  When I look at this piece, that is the last thing in my mind.  I am immediately pulled into the picture plane and upward, over the knolls, toward the top of the rise where the sun/moon hovers, urging me to continue climbing.  It is complete and has its own life, its own momentum.  It is what it is and that is beyond me now.

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Finding Inspiration

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged on February 25, 2011| 1 Comment »

I’ve started working on a few new pieces on paper, taking a short break from the larger additive paintings that have occupied me for the past few months.  One of the first was this painting, about 7″ by 12″, which is a continuation of last year’s black and white series.  I thought it would be best to dive back into this work with some black and white work to regather the feel and rhythm of the medium.

I call this black and white but it’s pretty evident that this is not completely accurate.  I still use bits of color, usually muted tones of red or yellow, and the rest is really black and gray.  Actually, now that I think about it, I think I was calling this my gray work several months back.  Writing or talking about the work is the only reason I try to label the styles I use.  In my mind, they are simply different and labels don’t matter.

This reentry into this work on paper is always interesting because there are always tweaks in the colors.  The time away from this style has cleansed the palette and gives me a new chance to see the colors and combinations in a new light.  While there is a continuum with obvious traits and colors in my work,  going back through the years and reviewing my work on a year by year basis shows these tweaks in an obvious way.  Some years, the predominant work is very bright with almost a gleaming white underneath that makes the work glow.  Very clean, very bright and light.  Other years, the colors are deeper and crowd together densely giving the work a very rich feel.  Some years are dominated by cerain colors. In these years there will be mainly blues or golden yellows or deep oranges that seem to jump out from every piece.

Every year is different even in a similar fashion.  So as I go back in for this year I am eager to see how the year evolves and what trail I will follow.  Looking at this piece allows me to see several pieces into the future.  Many new pieces have that effect.  They spark something, some new idea or rhythm, that I instantly visualize and, if things go as I see them, eventually find their way out into the world.  Sometimes they evaporate before I can capture them and I then find myself struggling to recall that spark, that idea.  It’s like trying to recall a story, something someone told you in passing several before.  You can remember being told something but the details just won’t come.  So you let it go and one day something will spark that thought and suddenly bring back the whole story in detail.  That’s what often happens when I look at my work– it brings back ideas that have laid dormant in my mmemory for a long period of time.

So when I look at a piece like this, I take pleasure in the painting itself but also in the inspiration it provides for subsequent pieces.  When this is happening, I know I’m back in rhythm and the work usually shows this.

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