2007
Oil On Canvas over Sculpted Foam
65 x 54 Inches
The first bass relief painting I had done in a year and the first ever with an extensively abstracted muse. The 3-D forms are full shapes and they perform sculpturally to the same degree they do graphically. Colors are wielded in streams in all directions traversing the Oxide yellow (feels like gold) background and Prussian blue body. The color has tastes; licorice, vanilla and juju ruby red, ginger drops. Like one with a with sweet tooth that has just discovered an x-tra large box of M&M’s and is determined to try and satisfy the craving by trying every hue. The background figure and purple pods beneath her knees are painted in the utterly flat paint, devoid of gloss, rendering a velvet quality. The strands of color criss-crossing the matt rectangle conversely are maximum gloss to intensify vividness by contrast. The difference between flat and textured gloss is palpable when one stands in front of the picture. These braids of sweetly tinctured hues are mixed with sand to increase their palatable sensory dimension. I was full of anticipation with the pose, its wide boxy layout promised sufficient negative spaces for an aggressive popping out of 3-D form. If substituting the hour glass shape with a boxy , curveless design portends a less than feminine result,I had the antidote: an endearing coquettish expression, contrasting no apparent glamour in the rectilinear body. Her haughty little friend with feathers simpers to the left with matching conceit.