La Performance

Oil on Canvas65 X 54 Inches

Oil on Canvas

65 X 54 Inches

At times I find myself thinking of the rectangle of a painting as dramatic stage. Theatrical set elements of costume, props and lighting are important in both mediums. The main and supporting characters assume the stage and they definitely have a script. Please indulge for the moment that in “La Performance” the bored ‘but playing along with it’ white doggie on the bed is not the star. As in theater you never know who will steal the show, the audience however is the fortunate voyeur, glimpsing the secret yearnings of the muse, performing alone in her bedroom. Once committed to the ‘set’, I seized upon features useful in co-opping the stage back into the domain of painting and sculpture. The yellow wall paper became a surface to display an abstract passage. I disassembled and reconstructed an actual brass bed which lends visual credulity of scale, to the thick impasto of ultramarine blue light swirls on the wall paper. Important to remember when mixing mediums in the end, it is a painting! Thus it will turn on sustaining visual interest and the organization of the fundamental elements; color, composition, handling of the oil paint. Ultimately these should support the rendered human condition, preferably via ole fashioned method acting approach; pose and facial expression. Repore’ between the considerable 3-D relief and her delicate facial features became crucial. On one hand I’m asking the audience to enjoy me pushing quite a bit of material in, out & around a large picture plain, on the other to empathetically accept her torment represented in a small subtle area of mascara ,hair color and a far away look. The actress is rehearsing (hopefully) for the arrival of the leading man.

FLIRTY

OIL ON CANVAS50X40 INCHES

OIL ON CANVAS

50X40 INCHES

The sketch for ‘Girl Eating Grapes’ was made quickly while seated at the bar at the “Odeon” restaurant in Tribecca NYC.  Capturing the twist of the torso and crossed legs the essence of the pose. A quick sketch in a public place is a bit like writing short hand. It is useless without a remembered a visual impression to consult later.The nuances and personal features which make this someone in particular were crafted later when applying color to canvas.The quilted banquet  red at the Odeon and so are the hi-lites of Helena’s hair and her accessories at that time.    When contemplating the look of the picture I wanted movement in the background as she would be motionless in foreground; I composed an atmosphere with a looping brushwork, summer greens and neutral hues to hold them down and compliment Helena’s auburn features and crimson bag. The ground under the back ground paint is a pebbly surface of sealed in sand .For me a painting without texture is like food with out texture; taste may be there but  texture provides feel, makes it real. Ultimately the lavender which borders the blue within the torso and legs allows the violet/red vs. green compliment to have its effect without feeling to severe ;a three color composition.

Burgundy Chase

2004Oil On Canvas58 x 45 inches

2004

Oil On Canvas

58 x 45 inches

A strong case is made here for painting a picture strait through in one session, without correction or addition. The two primary forces at work , as in many painterly outings; expression and description. The former, a painters need to get it out and lay it down. Pure expression; the crucible of the unknown, unconscious channeling, welcome accidents, a vehicle of change and movement. One may approach the easel with uncontrollable need ,an intensity which can manifest genius, or unruly results. Description, when carefully employed a faculty that conveys the illusion of reality. A many paged book of techniques and tricks with chapters including light, shadow, proportion and contour. Most post painters move between these two polarities usually declaring an allegiance, claiming the distinction of a purer essence for one or the other. Such has been the timber of considerable published art criticism and art school lines drawn in the sand. A prolonged hiatus preceded this picture, my need was considerable .Newness if not uncertainty counseled caution, barely taming the eagerness of one returning. Doubt, an excellent antidote for arrogance, was standing by, beginning to snicker until I blended the raw umber into the cerulean blue in the background North to South. I felt immediately the Burgundy and Titanium Yellow were going to prevail. The mixing of colors and the proportioning of the muse on the Burgundy Chaise happened quickly accompanied by the appeasement of hunger satiated. The work began early in the morning with Café’ de cocoa and a stick charcoal scratching and breaking over primed gray cloth. The work ended a hard day’s night later with wine glass in one hand a willowy narrow paint brush in the other, lining in red the inviting yellow woman. I proceeded joyfully, at times methodically and without stopping.

End of the Evening

Oil on Canvas58x54 Inches

Oil on Canvas

58x54 Inches

A thousand girls ,a thousand thrills’….. So sang Jim Morrison and The Doors in 1967 in a song “The Crystal Ship”.      In the early outings with this body of work, showing different moods of the illusive muse, never repeating the format, the pose, the color composition were my criterion. To induce diversity, I tapped a lifetime of appreciation for women. Like other men I have been subject to their provocation. The belief that every woman has a uniqueness which makes her a candidate for portrayal keeps me wide eyed. There are few woman and fewer situations they are in, that I fail to see beauty and feel empathy. Both poses on this page provide the voyeur visual access and opportunity. One might feel that she is unaware, unguarded, in an unseen moment,vanquished to an archipelago of futile satiation. In “End of the Evening”, notwithstanding the tipsy toast, her defiant salute to oblivion is a deference afforded by a blotto’d awareness to an unkind world of onlookers.   I intended an appreciable gratification for an unblinking audience upon this being, at once attractive and self destructive. Our concern somewhat mitigated by her athletically toned limbs and limber ski-lift adaptation of a chair. The image evokes paternal concern in some or an appraisal of her viability in others. After all, she is yours and you have plans for her yet this evening or… this is your daughter, sister, old girlfriend and she is in a vulnerable spot. I imagined her visage while leaning back, propped up on one elbow, sketch book in one hand, graphite in the other, observing an empty Corbusier chair. A genuine hallucination emerged in an atmosphere of hellish burgundy smoke. A yellow haired muse took shape, barely visible, wandering in a no exit canyon of her own pernicious habits.

Better Half

Oil On Panel48X40 Inches

Oil On Panel

48X40 Inches

Its amazing the things you remember seeing your mother doing in the 1950’s.  Chain smoking Kent’s and Viceroy’s, chain drinking coca-colas, and ironing.   A child’s perspective is from 4 feet above the ground; I was looking up at her.    I came to understand it was more than removing wrinkles from her garments. It was her way of achieving a temporary perfection. She could control the way the world perceived her. It struck me in retrospect it was her internal way of world re-ordering the external. She had some doubts about her self while I had none about her, she was perfect. She was a self divided and she was preparing her better half.

Transients

Oil and Brass Relief on Canvas over Panel58 x 43 Inches

Oil and Brass Relief on Canvas over Panel

58 x 43 Inches

In ‘Transients’ I returned to the same two lovers were who were pictured in “Heat Cannot be Separated from Fire”. In this setting cool water comes from above, in the other; heat and fire from below. The lovers here are in transit; an escape from an apocalypse or they are running from persecution in an epoch without love.

Heat Cannot be Separated from Fire nor Beauty from the Eternal

OIL AND MODELING PASTE ON CANVAS OVER PANEL  54X40 Inches

OIL AND MODELING PASTE ON CANVAS OVER PANEL  

54X40 Inches

The sketch of this pose evolved whimsically, became a challenge, ultimately an obsession. The idea; two people entwined could stand on two feet, the other feet inwardly poised to one another-soul to soul. At first glance balance doubtful yet when struck the pose had surprising stability. The embrace was assumed by two women and I substituted the male anatomy.   Particular details lend underlying meaning. Her gaze is downward somewhat concerned about the crisis at hand; pointing at smoking rocks which form a concentric circle enclosing them. His gaze is upward unconcerned with heat smoke and fire rising from  the rocks. He is looking for acknowledgment, watching for transcendent sign that the ritual enactment is acceptable and self sacrifice averted. Another reversal; his features are Caucasian but skin pallor dark. Her features are African but skin tone light. The conditions described in the picture are voluntary yet threatening, often the parameters of love.  I had just returned from working in Tuscany for six weeks and was deeply inspired by the land where neo-classicism thrived and the poetic truth of Dante’ hangs in the air.    In this picture and the one that follows” Transients “reflect a short return to a neoclassic aesthetic which always lies just below the surface in my tableau. The figures are sculpted relief. Their surfaces rise an inch above the canvas and are formed from sanded modeling paste made from marble dust mixed with polymer Re-sanded and recoated numerous times and then painted in oil later.

Washing Her Hair

Oil On Canvas

Oil On Canvas

I see therefore I am. Possession is achieved first with the eyes and seldom more satisfying: credo of the voyeur. Observation fertilizes the unconscious. The next step inward, behold the phantasm in your mind, attempt to recapture it on canvas; the longing of many but task of the artist. When you work from imagination best to ignore features that delay arriving at the essence of a fleeting dream. Her skin, pose, incorporeal color, all proffer the feeling of a ghostly nocturnal suit, with little detail to import a sense of reality. The absence of skeletal understructure or costume elements (button, cuffs, lapels) tell of woolgathering. The water fall is simplified, reduced to an uneven wavy grid also suggesting her hair. Can you imagine a place in time when a woman could be seen washing her hair at a stream or waterfall, a not be a particularly noteworthy occurrence..? The simplest acts of existence hold the greatest enchantment. For me these express our transient earthling status best. The two pictures facing on this page were conceived and completed in the same month. The solidity of “Parting Her Hair” freed me, enough to paint “Washing Her Hair” as willowy and wispy.

Amiss in the Abyss VI

2015Oil On Canvas48x84 Inches

2015

Oil On Canvas

48x84 Inches

I came to realize that the Venetian Carnivale’ clown, is the artist and as close to a self-portrait as I gotten so far. This is my 6th attempt to describe him, in each painting there has been urgency in bringing him back to life on canvas, always a quest in search of an answer. In each of the six paintings the only element, which remains the same, is the carefree pose. The networks of colors, which comprise his suit, are as varied as, the infinite colors in a child’s crayon box. The cap and collar always of a different design too. This collar is inspired by collars painted on the officials of high the courts, by the Dutch master; Rembrandt. The cap is a design I saw on the puppets of Old Town Square in Prague. 
 
 The contrast between finite depiction of the Jester suit and the raw elemental colliding, spiraling gases of sky is the primary aesthetic allure the heart this sixth Jester. My initial vision for the background would include a night sky, a cauldron of super heated alchemist liquid below ,and paint streaming off the artist’s palette, the reckless and carefree fling of red paint traveling outside the picture plane. There is a signature brushstroke, which can be seen in each of the previous five paintings of the Jester ,the thick snake-like stacked curvilinear formation of cobalt violet (as vital to the picture as my signature). 
  The night sky is a subtly layered dark composition of very flat oil scumbled over with equally dark primary Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine blue oil crayon. It is a subtle effect, so subtle they may be missed in a reproduction. They are essential in this area, undulating behind to the circular galaxy of metallic golden ochre. Allowing a  dramatic mood behind in the galaxy. 
 The galaxy itself is a mortal, clumsy, attempt to illustrate heaven, although in another dimension time/space, I have always felt the immediate afterlife to be a spherical place with light at the center (one may in fact be dispatched from there for another tour of life; reincarnation). Billions of tiny flecks of gold float in a ¼ inch thick epoxy medium, which form the arms of the galaxy of heaven. Lighter in color and value than the cosmic darkness behind, it overlays in extreme contrast to the ultra flat background, giving it clarity, despite transparency thus compositional and thematic significance. 
  The fling of paint which brings movement to the painting is also made of the thick epoxy paint. The unique epoxy richness of heavenly galaxy and the artist flung paint should join them in relationship and significance for the viewer. They in fact do blend into one another in the exact middle of the picture. Red blends with Gold, Mother with Son.

 I create a painting with the will to be at once illustrative and narrative yet also abstract. A balanced composition seems essential to accomplish this goal.

  I had lost my mother in December of 2014.We were very close and I spent the final 48 hours of her life along with my sisters and father at her side. With my hand on her forehead-I felt her spirit intensely in those final hours . I came away from her passing determined to visually express the assembly of souls spiraling around the creator of the universe, of which I am certain she is one.