Oil on Canvas
60X40 Inches
2013
Crafting the wall behind the acrobats was not unlike building one with mortar, sand, lime and trowel-all were employed here. As construction progressed I contemplated the couple and felt stronger about their shadow than themselves. Like the looking glass or last nights dream, a shadow suggests interchangeability of future and past, a glimpse of some one not seen an uncertain movement fleeting out of the corner your eye. Shadow is phenomenon.A sub-dimension of physical reality,an entry point. It's plasticity could serve the picture in several ways also. I had become precious about the wall, so much so, I spent several weeks enjoying it alone. The advantages of a shadow without its origin in view inevitably grew, the cool, transparent tone of shadow prevented loosing precious square inches of the wall. One could see within and its unobtrusive soft border. Cool and warm values reverse( even a rose appears blue while in shadow), the dancers adumbrate still provides the viewer a human form, albeit without detail. So I painted the shadow first as if the acrobats existed just out of sight. It was almost the best solution. The picture however, ultimately sought another course. My painting seems to require a firm resolution. One that leaves no doubt what I want you and I to see and feel. Once the performers assumed the stage I fell into rendering anatomical details, facial expression, fingers and toes, a degree of reality commensurate with the wall. The final and ultimately most important pictorial issue was becoming clear; how to make them definitive enough to exist in pictorial space in front of the eye catching wall, not to mention conquer their own shadow. So a costume was devised. The pigment may not be quiet evident on the screen but the harlequin diamonds are grooved in texture and colored slightly metallic.