New Painting: Paradigms Lost
New Painting: It’s Awash
I love how the visual ideas one entertains in the course of being an artist may lay dormant for a time, and then return as a nice surprise.  🙂
Last Wednesday night, with a head full of visual ideas, I entered the studio and started trying to get those ideas out on canvas. Â This is the first of 3 paintings I did in less than 24 hours. Â While this is not exactly what I envisioned I would be creating, so far, I’m very happy with the direction.
Painting abstractly, or non-objectively, is a much more intuitive process for me than the planned paintings from life.  I start with some loose ideas for shapes, colors, and composition, begin adding some patches of paint, and then follow the brushes to see where they lead.  In this case, they led back to some similar imagery I was exploring 2 years ago (see “Alien Kitchen” and “Twenty-Sixth Day Plus 100” from the Hot Hot Summer series of Works on Paper).
I don’t think these paintings would have taken shape the way they did were it not also for my 2-month excursion back into representational paintings. Â I learned a lot from seriously concentrating on making brushstrokes (and I still have a lot left to learn), but I was champing at the bit to get back to abstraction. Â In just over 4 days, I’ve now created seven new small abstract paintings and started a couple of others. Â I’ll be posting one a day unless something (like work, illness or social life) causes me to take a break.
I intend to continue painting my new abstracts alla prima, or “all at once,” as I did with most of my recent still life paintings.  What this means is the painting is started and finished in one painting session, while the paint is still wet.  It lends a freshness to the work, in that my visual ideas of that day are transmitted to the painting in that session, but more importantly—at least when working in oil—the paints and paint strokes flow very well into, over, around, and through all the other paint strokes on the canvas.  The other main option is to work in layers (“indirect painting”), where new paint is laid down over dry paint from a previous session, rather than becoming physically integrated with the earlier applications of paint.  Plenty of artists work by painting in layers, and it’s an equally valid way of working, but alla prima is my preference.
New Painting: Et Tu Klaatu?
With last night’s painting I am asking myself if what I am trying to achieve is looser and better brushwork while standing at arm-plus-brush length from the canvas, why am I using little toys for models that are sometimes as small as 1-1.5 inches high? Â I can barely see them from my vantage point, and find that I do have to move in closer from time to time.
On the other hand, I am really enjoying painting paintings of these little toys, even though their tiny size is not as conducive to my loosening up as, say, a basket of apples would be.  Well, it’s all a process, and with each new (almost) daily painting, I learn a little more or gain a little confidence.  Tonight, I was quite pleased with a few really good brushstrokes, and sometimes, that’s enough.  🙂
As with all of my small still life paintings here, it is painted on a 1.25″ deep gallery wrapped canvas with the sides painted black, so it is ready to hang on a wall, without a frame (it would also look great in a floater frame).
A Change in Direction…Three New Still Life Paintings
It’s been at least a decade since I painted any representational still life paintings. Â I thought I had perhaps gotten past painting still lifes in favor of abstraction, but have recently found myself wanting to work perceptually again, only this time, with any luck (or should I say, with the development of skill), in a looser, more painterly way.
Here are the first three perceptual still life paintings I’ve done this century: Spongebob Squarepants was the first and is still a bit tight, then I painted Patrick Star and Squidward Tentacles. Â I think they came out pretty well. Â These are, of course, based on small plastic figurines of these characters.
I’m really enjoying working this way again, and hope to do more or less daily paintings if I can. Â The intervening decade of pushing myself further toward abstraction has been a very interesting journey so far. Â I plan to continue working abstractly as well doing the small still lifes; I don’t know yet if I will be doing both simultaneously or if I will do the still lifes for a while and then pick back up with the abstracts. Â Stay tuned.
New Painting: Patrick Star
New Painting: Spongebob Squarepants
A Visit to the “About Face” Exhibit at the Blanton Museum
Yesterday we checked out the “About Face” portrait exhibit at the Blanton Museum. Another great exhibit! For exhibits like this that are (more or less) chronological, we try to start our viewing at the end, or the latest works and work our way backward in time. I usually enjoy viewing contemporary works the most, as I haven’t seen as many of them, and they are more relevant to my own work.
I absolutely love all works by Chuck Close. He’s one of the painters that I contemplate often when I am about to start a painting session. I love how his portraits are made up of tiny abstract shapes, and how interesting all those shapes are, and how much fun it is to see a progression of the various shapes within the portrait—more fun when the work is in color, but almost more interesting in black and white. I keep wondering how I could incorporate shapes like his into my abstract paintings. (Does it even make sense? Maybe I should paint little representational shapes that make up a larger abstract work.)
I was thrilled to see the work “Synecdoche” by Byron Kim, which consists of oil and wax on twenty panels, and are portraits in the sense that each panel is the base skin color of each of twenty models that he found on the UT campus; thus the title, “Synecdoche” (a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole). These twenty panels are in a way part of a larger work, or kind of a synecdoche within a synecdoche, the larger work now owned by the National Gallery of Art. The larger work has been shown at such museums as the Tate and MOMA, which has a link to a nice video explanation by Byron Kim.
<– This sculpture made up of photographs by Oliver Herring amazes me. Kind of like David Hockney in 3D. 🙂
The oil painting by Jim Torok below is only about 4″ x 3″ — awesomely done and really requires close viewing! I’m trying to imagine the numbers of hairs in the brushes he must have used.
The portrait by Robert Henri is a long-time favorite of mine; I can stare for hours at almost any of his paintings, and his portraits are particularly amazing.
It is also great to see again the “Portrait of George Gershwin in a Concert Hall” by David Alfaro Siqueiros, which is also a portrait of dozens of audience members.
So much great work, so little time to talk about it, so go to the Blanton and see this show yourselves, if you can. It’s up through September 4th. There are rooms and rooms of paintings from present-day back to the 14th century. I took photos of many of the ones that I found compelling, which you can see in the gallery below.
“Rivers” at Wally Workman
Last weekend, we finally made it out to Wally Workman Gallery to see the group show “Rivers.” So much excellent work! I was particularly interested in seeing two paintings by Ryan Coover, which were whimsical abstractions that seemed to contain microscopic life seen up a little closer. His two larger paintings were both beautiful and fascinating.
I also really enjoyed the wonderful luminous colors in the large and small abstract oil paintings by Joyce Howell, and the lovely large worlds created by Saliha Staib. Neighbor Jennifer Balkan’s paintings are always a delight to view; I love her hunky application of paint!
Well, instead of reading my blatherings about how much I enjoyed all of the work in the show, why don’t you check out these photos I took of some of the paintings there:
5×7 Exhibition Continues at the Arthouse through June 12th
The 5×7 show at the Arthouse is open through June 12th, sooooo you still have a shot at picking up some wonderful small art.
I did not end up going to the ArtSplurge (the first night opening when the art is initially revealed and available for sale), but the Art Social on the second night was great! There was pizza and beer, good live music and lots of friends, and a gazillion wonderful 5×7 paintings and sculptures!
The renovations at the Arthouse are excellent, allowing for much more exhibition space. The beauty of the old building has been preserved while also injecting some gorgeous contemporary design elements. I really love the modern variation of glass block windows.
There were several art pieces in protest of the firing of the Arthouse’s curator. Here are a few of the protest pieces I saw.
And see some of the gorgeous art on that’s still on view at the Arthouse here (my two paintings are among this group of pictures; can you find them?): Art Openings: 5×7 Show 2011 Opening.
Pictures from the People’s Gallery Exhibition
I was so thrilled to be selected for the 2011 People’s Gallery Exhibition at the Austin City Hall. One of my paintings, “Luminous Future,” was selected from among 1400 pieces entered by 325 local artists and arts organizations. This year the jurors were: Carla Nickerson, artist and Production Coordinator for ProArts Collective; Johnny Walker, artist; and Herlinda Zamora, Culture and Arts Education Manager, Mexican American Cultural Center. The exhibition was finalized and designed by Jean Graham, the City’s Exhibition Coordinator. (Thanks, everyone, for including me!).
I thought I was feeling better from several days of allergy-related illnesses, so Terry and I got spiffed up and headed downtown. We arrived at the City Hall just in time to hear a few words from the mayor, and to see Caprice Pierucci receive her People’s Choice award for her piece in the 2010 Exhibition.
It was wonderful seeing so many of my art friends there, and that so many of them were also selected for this show! Jill Alo and I were beginning painting and drawing students together in Minnie Miles’ classes at ACC back in the ’80s before she moved on to UT and I went up to SAIC. We also worked together at a framing shop while in school. We have been good friends ever since, and have been in several critique groups and art exhibitions together, so I was so happy to see her very sunny piece in this show.
I also have exhibited and been in critique groups with Sandy Lowder, whose lovely large painting was hung right next to mine. I love the abstract qualities that she always infuses into her paintings (which frequently begin in a figurative way).
Gladys Poorte also has an awesomely beautiful painting in this exhibition. Jill, Sandy, Gladys, and I were all in the “Topographies” show together at Studio2 Gallery in 2003, along with 4 or 5 other artists.
Kristy Battani from the Texas Wax organization, of which I was a part for a couple years, had a lovely encaustic work in this show, too.
There were several other friends and acquaintances whose work is in the show, but (for some reason) I did not get photos of their pieces during the opening (I simply must go back!).
Take a gander at the photos I did get below, and if you’re in Austin, I highly recommend taking an hour or so someday to go see all the awesome paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, assemblages, and installations in this show. You can even vote for your favorite piece.
The show is at the Austin City Hall through January 13, 2012, exhibited in the hallways, conference rooms, lobbies, balconies, large stairwells, and in the Mayor’s office–all throughout the first 3 floors of the City Hall. Mine is #92, in The Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office hallway on the second floor. Hours are from 8am-5pm M-F.
Austin City Hall
301 W 2nd St.
Austin, TX 78701
View a gallery of pictures from the People’s Gallery Exhibition opening.