It's 4:14. (Whey Fo Me)

It's 4:14. (Whey Fo Me)
Originally uploaded by 730N

So the blog writing did stall. Apologies for that! I did get lost, but thankfully it was in the studio. I fell out of contact for a little while I was painting a new picture for my first official show in Philadelphia. It was a group show (Sam hang too!) at the Highwire Gallery. The opening was fun! Turnout was decent. We didn't network as much as we should have, but had a grand time talking about the range of work that was there. My painting was called "Sugarhouse and the Divide" and had ballot boxes below it where people could vote on a contentious neighborhood issue. More on that soon! The night was punctuated with a couple glasses of Absynth and all in all was a much needed gallery crawl through the neighborhood.

So "It's 4:14 (Whey Fo Me)" is the next up for brainstorming.

Taking some of the themes from the previous blog post:

• form drawn up out of it's relationship to light,
  
• my role as an observer,


• context I place my practice in,


• specificity of place.

Again we have a singular subject, placed in it's environment. What is the environment? There is a candle in the lower right corner. The subject has a glass of some liquid while sitting in a curved booth. There is decorative woodwork in the background and a what looks like a picture frame in the upper left. Much of this suggests a bar of some kind, yet no other people are in the picture.

Marc, the subject of the painting, is wearing what looks like a jean jacket with a woolish collar. He has facial hair shaved into a goatee/ sideburn style. His eyes look slightly drunk, yet perhaps that effect is also achieved by the upturned eyebrows, which could lengthen the eyelids.

Marc's weight is placed on his right elbow. The arms are mostly crossed, except for the drink in his left hand which he holds with his thumb and forefinger. The direction of the torso follows the curve of the booth he is sitting in, suggesting that the current posture is temporary. A quiet pose, the inclusion of the glass, the lean toward the camera, the upturned eyebrows and direct eye contact with otherwise relaxed face all speak to an offered mythology. One that somebody who recently looked at this painting encapsulated quite succinctly with "Dude looks like he is in the Sopranos"

The painting has a lot of curves in it. The curve of the booth is the dominate line of the composition. The environment is mostly orange and reds and surrounds the figure. The figure, while mostly blue, reflects the orange light of the environment. The site and the figure are creating a particular feel that neither could quite do without the other. The particular feel occasionally is mobster tinged, and occasionally is drunk and out on the town.

The line of the wall paneling seems to be off in terms of traditional perspective. But I think this works to stall the viewers eye at Marc's eyes, which are looking directly back at you.

The second place of attention is the green in the upper right, which then moves down to the candle in the lower right.

I have to split to go to work now, but I hope to return to this to address

• form drawn up out of it's relationship to light,

the light of the room— light as a definer, especially in light of painting. What else are definers? Politics of Space? Form gets drawn up out of it's relationship to "definers?" need a better word.

• my role as an observer,

I help in the mythologizing of symbols. I also have a lifetime of history with Marc, a fact that further "defines" and/or sheds light on the form.

• context I place my practice in,

I looked at Alice Neel and John Currin while writing this. They have similarities in portraits as a singular subject, but they embrace any distortions. I have distortions in form, but don't directly play into them at this point.

• specificity of place.

I like the sound of this phrase and need to elaborate upon it. But this space appears to be coded as a bar with its attendant details and rules.... both defined by and defining what is done in it.

bye for now.

Julie's Sycamore

sycamore tree
Originally uploaded by 730N

Hi.

In the next few weeks I plan to write in a brainstorming fashion about particular paintings done in the last 2 years that I find to be important. Any feedback, positive or negative is welcome. Haters, however, can expect to be decimated by my swords of logic and reason.

Click the image to see a larger version.

Here we go:

Julie's Sycamore is painting done in exchange for several months of electric utility bills. I painted it as a commissioned gift, for Julie, who happened to love this particular tree. The tree is located behind Julie's old house in Pittsburgh, on one of many steep slopes in that region. My old house mates, Sara and Mark, bought that house from Julie and her husband directly and wanted to give this painting as a gift of gratitude.

Sycamores are massive yet smooth barked. The bark exfoliates as the tree grows and leaves a mottled, almost camouflaged look. The tree is well suited to grow in urban environments. As uncovered during 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, the tree is 1 of the 3 most prevalent trees along the 3 Rivers corridors in Allegheny County.

The tree is massive and smothered lovingly in it's forested surroundings. The sky in the background filters through the leaves and is ultimately the source of all the marks and colors. It is interesting to note that the source of light is coming from is the right hand side and nearly all of the branches on the Sycamore are reaching toward it. To call it self-referential would somewhat cheapen that concept. I am used to the idea that form can be drawn up out of it's relationship to light, but the record of growth indicated by the direction of the branches takes that into a temporal direction. The tree and the light are in a dialogue with each other. The light reflecting off the tree creates the form of the tree, which grows and is guided by the light.

I'm not sure if I am communicating this appropriately. But it is boggling my mind right now to recognize that this is all in paint.

The amount of detail in such a scene is too much to paint. If it were all painted I imagine it would look stale. I paint much how Hawthorne describes painting. Spots of color. You paint spots of color, from large to small and the painting has a way of forming itself. The way that unfolds feels surprisingly like the game go, as if the lights and darks in the image are in a dance of tension with one another.

I paint in approximations.

The tree is placed in the center of the composition, with a slight look upwards. The fact that the viewer seems to be slightly below the tree, coupled with its massiveness, conveys a sense of grandeur. Is the tree a god? Is the tree a ecological sentinel, standing guard over my old housemates in their new home?

Divorced from the personal meaning of this tree for me, I believe the painting still holds weight. I think that is because of the technical handling and execution. The brushwork is incredibly loose upon close inspection, yet incredibly cohesive from a distance. The surface is fractured with a logic to the surface of the painting. Within those fractures are bits of controlled chaos.

There seems to be a lack of a firm footing for the viewer, and yet the tree is [pardon me] firmly rooted. That, coupled with the care for this particular tree deserves to have its story told.

In many of my paintings of late, I have been after a surface logic that is somewhat stylized, but seems to be at the core of what constitutes a "good painting" for me. A surface integrity that interlocks perfectly.
The best and well known example of this that is SOMEWHAT similar is the interlocked sense in Van gogh's painting "Starry Night". This quality aides the fact that your eye is compelled to move across the whole painting, and that might be all it is... finding paths to direct the path of viewing the whole canvas. The more I chase this, the more I am able to make it work. But I am not sure I have gotten it to work across a whole painting. In this work, there is a stubborn bump in the too thick branch on the upper left corner.

The tree becomes a symbol: a stake in the ground signifying the memory of experience of place for Julie, the gratitude my housemates have for being able to move into this space, and a sentiment that grows close to the people I lived with in Pittsburgh and directly left behind as I moved to Philadelphia.

Our relationship to nature and others is ultimately shaped locally.

Margate Mural Progress photos..

margate Mural Progress
Originally uploaded by 730N

Some of you may know, I am working on a 3 walled interior mural in Margate NJ.

The mural is part of a larger redesign of the 3rd floor of a beach house. The redesign is headed by JJ Fox Interior Design. Click on the photo to see more progress shots in my flickr stream. The floor will be painted white at the end, creating a lighter environment.

The project is going along smoothly. It is nice to be able to take a break and walk on the beach. There is a boardwalk (the world's longest) that leads all the way to Atlantic City. I find the social fabric there to be really interesting with all of the casinos. I went and promptly lost 5 dollars. Philly will soon have some casinos, and somehow I don't think it will help the surrounding areas. Casinos are palaces capitalism. Built solely on the product of desire.

Check back for updates on the progress on the mural. Will probably be done in the next week or so.

A look back to a work traded a year ago.

Traded!
Originally uploaded by 730N

In Pittsburgh at a street fair, I traded this piece for a graffiti inspired work from another artist. I liked the old look of the paper here, which was artificially induced. The cropping and pose of the drawing is pretty interesting as well.

I didn't sign the work on the front, perhaps I did on the back. I have a hard time signing works on the front out of fear of a "blemish" but it probably is necessary in the larger vision of working as an artist.

The painting that I got in the trade is hanging up here in Philly. It is nice, but I don't remember the guys name and I am sure he doesn't remember mine.

It is really interesting to deal in a visual language when our society is so drenched in images. How do you compete for attention? Do you replicate the tactics that advertisers and image builders use? Or do you go against the grain?

I have been reading Baudrillard again.. specifically "Simulations." He used to be the darling of the art crowd, but recently seems to be replaced by Deluze. I am intrigued about this idea of the "copy replacing the original" in how it relates to my plan and future thinking about my art practice.

I make images. And yet, it can be said that more people have seen these images though this web page than in "real life." And I have plans to create digital prints of works so I can sell them at a more affordable price.

I would argue that the actual work, and the reproductions of the work are one larger "meta-artwork" with each being dependent upon each other. In that sense, it does not matter that I traded this work. I have an image of it and I can present it here.

That is, until my hard drive fails.

I found canvas put out for the trash.

Reminds me of art school! I found them down the street from us in South Philly. There was something sad about the fact that they were given up... objects at one point that were embedded with care. I took home about 12 of them. They are in surprisingly good condition.

The first painting I am working on to come out of this is entitled "The Anatomy of a Street Tree (the maple at my front door)"

40" x 40"

I have to admit that I have not been painting as much as I would like recently. I've hit a busy patch! Freelance gigs and 40 hour a week job eat away at that time! I'm the first to say there are no excuses though.


A side note: Someone recently had some critiques on my webpage... feel free to list them in the comments to this blog. I would like to continue to evolve the site. What are some things that are blatantly missing?

Swissvale Mural Wall

Swissvale Mural Wall
Originally uploaded by 730N.

Putting a proposal together with eco-artist Ann Rosenthal about this site in Swissvale PA.

Fingers Crossed!