Acrobats

Oil on Canvas60X40 Inches2013

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.

The Filal Daughter

Oil on Canvas over Sculpted Foam  72x90 Inches

Oil on Canvas over Sculpted Foam  

72x90 Inches

My fascination with costumes is not new, it goes back my childhood drawing army uniforms, clown suites and baseball players .The samurai is a short leap from GI Joe, who was evident in comic-book shops I escaped to, I looked at the pictures seldom read the captions. The leap in this painting may have been planted in my mind when "Chiyo" jumped from the rooftop while attempting to escape the geisha quarters in the novel "Memoirs of a Geisha". Movement in art is fundamental to figure drawing, I first encountered it as a student at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago. Moving beyond the picture frame, beyond the confines of your room, life, beyond your frame of mind. The figure is a transcendental symbol. The lines of movement create an opportunity to initiate abstract form around the figure. The pose itself was inspired by Yoshitoshi's One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. The fatal {filal} child intends to recapture her father's lost pride by inflicting her own death. The combination of brushed aluminum surface juxtaposed with the highly textured oil painting is reminiscent of my constructions and combine paintings of the 1970s.

Fallen Towers

Oil on Canvas60 x 84 Inches2004

Oil on Canvas

60 x 84 Inches

2004

I have looked into the hole in the ground for many months .  Filling the void with something hopeful and loving is what my minds conjured when I look there. A bed of clouds moves in . The ethereal cloud substance tenderly supports and elevates the lovers above the recent past and its painful memory.The bedroom becomes the their beloved NYC. The walls are removed the bedroom are the city. Their soft bed of clouds contrast the abrasive brick and mortar, steel and glass.   I work from a particular vision ,a hallucination if you like, I always have.I starred at this large blank canvas for a week. When I know what I’m going to paint I’ll do how ever many sketches necessary to feel confident before starting.The elements are painted realistic but the vision is a fantasy. This painting required numerous architectural sketches and the Double Helix in the sky too. I wanted uplifting architecture to redefine the downtown skyline. Fortunately the LMDC, NYC and NY State officials wanted it too. The 2 largest structures nearest the viewer, THE FREEDOM TOWERS and The 80 South St. Tower were in conceptual stages when I imagined this painting. In May ’04 when I started seeing this painting in my minds eye the only designs available for these bld.’s were the finalists sketches on the cover of N.Y. POST. Websites had little and there still are no blu-prints in the public domain for these buildings. At length I managed to get a fairly clear idea as to what Mr. Liberskind and Santiago Calatrava had in mind for the two main structures in the foreground. It was somewhat of a challenge to paint the buildings accurately before they are built. Time will tell over the next several years how well I have accurately imagined there appearance.  Everyone downtown eventually spends an evening in the bar @ City Hall. It is an exceptional honor for me to have ‘Fallen Towers’ exhibited in CITY HALL. Elisha and Henry Meer are gracious friends and neighbors. They share with me an optimism about the future that is expressed in this picture. I have felt for many years that City Hall is the quintessential downtown Manhattan place. There is a vibe which is what downtown is and feels like to me readily found there. I am proud and happy to have this painting on the magnificent brick wall opposite the bar.  Fallen Towers” describes and awaits the future in a context of love and a vision of tranquility