a couple of contemporary painters i like post details of work in process. sort of violates the whole art-magic thing but it’s a way of populating the site with more frequent updates and letting people know what i’m up to in my far distant corner of manhattan.
here’s a corner of the sister painting to the Christmas gift. this is a small part of a small painting. just after i’ve boldly gone in and washed it in a pale green and destroyed the earlier version. the control/chaos thing is something i’ve always liked in painting. that it suits my mentality is either a boon or huge stumbling block. i understand mechanical work and the amount of effort that goes into it but it’s never as sexy as a smooshy impasto passage of found hue scumble and weathered bramble of oil torn back into the brush movement. again, i’m just spouting my bias.
- Ink at the Meer, Sept. 14, 2020 - September 21, 2020
- Merry Cary, 2019 - December 8, 2019
- Copse, Late Summer - October 1, 2014
You’ve got a California School thing going. Did you see the Elmer Bischoff show at George Adams about 5 years back? I think you found that mutable place in abstraction informed by a life-time of figurative work.
Thank you for the feedback, Delia.
I didn’t see that show at George Adams, but in full disclosure i should offer that i used to work at Salander and we repped the Bischoff estate for a number of years … so i’m very familiar with the work.
I got the Bay Area figurative comments when i was still in college at Art Center long before i really knew anything about the style. So a long and odd way of coming around to it. Maybe it’s something in the water? My earlier work had a lot in common with David Park and Nathan Oliveira well before my understanding of their work. I’m not sure what/who i thought i was channeling at the time. The known markers would have been Ernst and Kline.
In this sister painting, there is in no small part a sense of the New York School and Robert De Niro Sr and Paul Resika paintings, both of which i’ve spent a great deal of time around. Maybe just for the brush work and the simplification of color. We’ll see. It’s a departure for me. In a sea of departures.
Currently, I’m really loving the two landscape rooms of Bellows at the Met. Just incredible painting that puts his figurative work to shame in many ways. I’ve got to go see that show AGAIN. grrrrr.