Today's title relates the discomfort I feel when viewing the painting "Young Man." Some of my discomfort comes from the impossibility of reproducing the subtlety of actual works of art. I do not like what "Young Man" looks like in today's post. In actual viewing it is not as shabby as what you will see here. "Young Man" is far from emotionally resolved. In any case, I will return to write about my discomfort with "Young Man" after I show my two drawings from yesterday. These drawings were also difficult to reproduce (I spent about an hour playing with them using iPhoto and Photoshop). Obviously, more intricately executed works of art are impossible to accurately reproduce. My process in making the painting "Young Man" is uncomfortable. It speaks to my need to emote with clarity. The traditional feel of this painting overwhelms any emotional message. It is dull and mawkish. So, what am I doing? This is what I am required to unravel today. I do know I am making this painting in questioning my direction and process. Today I will strip away and replace, and work toward finding something more substantially in tune with the direction I must follow. Art making is two steps forward, one back, over and over. My first impulse in making "Young Man" was to go backward, now I must advance.
I am no where near my final work. In point of fact, I know I will never be making my final work. Evolution is impossible to stop. I started a new painting yesterday, which I'll call "Young Man." This painting is telling me my interests continue to be discovered, uncovered. Yesterday my approach was simple. I gave into impulses and intuition; I was not judgmental. I was surprised. This painting is about sensitivity to the internal emotions of the person I am creating, it is about light constructing form, and straightforward composition. It is a small painting, 32 X 38 inches. I will return to this painting today. Conflicts within me are apparent when one compares the painting "Young Man" to the two drawings I made yesterday. I want to create my own mythology. I want to push form, composition, and color to expressive limits. Picasso has been my mentor in accepting conflict. My highest priority is to create works which speak truthfully. Picasso pushed hard using his intuition, and every bit of his knowledge. His conflicts caused him to create many styles. His works ranged widely in approach: from his blue and rose periods (sensitively portrayed figures), to deconstructing and reconstructing form (cubism), to robustly rounded classical forms, to highly emotional work using his ability to distort the human figure (e.g. Guernica), and to his late work full of gushy paint and freaky, distorted figures (see this week's Bloomberg Businessweek, page 96). Picasso was reported to have said, "I do not seek, I find." Picasso did find many ways to express, but I do not believe one can find without seeking.
As predicted I had just one hour in the studio yesterday; time enough for one drawing. Today, I will be in the studio all day long. Here's yesterday's drawing:
Yesterday I did not have a lot of time in the studio. Two drawings were made. My concerns have not changed since yesterday's post, but I will have little time to problem solve today. I will not be able to be in the studio for more than a couple of hours. Tomorrow I will post thoughts and work from today. I expect them to be similar in feel to those posted today. When my time is restricted my work tends to be energetic while referring back to tried and true themes.
I am into the 5th month of writing this blog. Looking back, I have gone through many transitions. My learning curve has been massive. I am now entering a phase in my development where the daily making of art is more open ended than I had anticipated. Through work I have acquired basic skills which allow me to take great technical risks. I have now become uncomfortable doing anything else except investigating ways to stimulate myself by expressing intuitively felt ideas and emotions. My work intensity over the last five months has placed me in this nerve-wracking position. Peggy Lee sang "Is That All There Is?" (1969). This song, written by the mighty songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, is based upon Thomas Mann's short story "Disillusionment." It emotes the concerns of a chronically bored woman as she moves through life. I am not bored nor disillusioned, but I am certainly surprised to watch myself enter the studio with extreme freedom based upon an amassing of skill. Is this all there is? It was so much easier to be animated and intrigued by the simple learning of skills. My responsibilty has shifted. The learning curve has changed from my acquiring basic shills to my learning about my personal, internalized view of existence. The technical struggle has become a search for the proper manner to interpret and display my self discoveries. This brings me to the painting "Window." Here I show its seventh version. I have struggled dearly to find truth is this painting. My discomfort is diminishing, but not enough for me to let go. It is not the time for me to write about the meaning of this painting. I will, however, make one technical statement. The man on the right has changed little over the last several versions; he needs to be reassessed within this version's context. Yesterday's drawings also are involved in a different manner of questioning and technical pursuit. For me, the second drawing holds more meaning. In both drawing I stopped before solving them completely. These are definitely drawings as studies and not drawings complete within themselves.
For years I have often returned to study the paintings of Amedeo Modigliani. My attraction to his work was obvious, but the reasons for the attraction not so obvious. My recent quest for more control over composition, while dealing with form and the human figure, has made the reasons for my appreciation of Modigliani apparent. In painting after painting Modigliani uses shape to compose his compositions, which are restricted in theme to the human figure. His forms appear to have three-dimensions because he rounds them using value variations which mimic light and shadow. To prove the point, here is a painting my Modigliani. Notice the way Modigliani shapes the eyes but does not bother to place a pupil or iris. This I would never do, but shape so dominates Modigliani and his expression that the individual nuances of each shape are unimportant. I have found this an effective way to compose, thinking of composing shapes on the flat canvas while acknowledging depth and roundness of forms. I will now show two drawings made yesterday. Each was composed using shape but drawn thinking three-dimensional form. Another artist I revisit often is Willem de Kooning. He thinks similarly to Modigliani. This is obvious in an early de Kooning. His later work exhibits the same approach albeit confused by his brash use of texture. Here's an "early" de Kooning: Yesterday I played with these thoughts and made a painting, which took about 3 hours from start to finish.
I don't have much to say today. I will quickly go to posting photos of my work from yesterday's studio session. One comment: In the drawings, and in the painting "Window," I paid special attention to shape as I made forms within the overall compositions.
Today I will move back into the painting "Window." As I transform "Window" I am evaluating my process. I feel uncomfortable with my current process. I have been looking to Henri Matisse for help. Matisse considers light, color, shape, and composition more important than form. His final works were color cut-outs. I do not wish to emulate these cut-outs, but as summarizations of Matisse's ideas they are instructive (I'll show one at the end of today's post). The drawing I made yesterday speaks to my discomfort: its composition suffers as light and form dominate its structure. I find this drawing stiff; it is without compositional fluidity. I believe a viewer is first engaged with a work of art by its composition, rather than form or light.
The painting "Window" continues to go through revisions. As usual, I am looking for authenticity and getting closer through destruction and replacement. A photo update for "Window" will post soon.
I made a delightful drawing yesterday. I am surpised by how the last two days have people exhibiting contentment and joy. I did not get into the studio on Monday 11/08/2010, so when I entered yesterday I felt a bit disoriented ("Where was I? What was I doing last? Where was I going?"). So I went straight to drawing. Three drawings were made. Each subsequent drawing felt better then the last. After the drawings were made it was afternoon and I proceeded to paint. As I mentioned when I last time posted a photo of the painting "Window," this painting needed the upper left to be solved. I am not secure with its current state, but I will show it. Yesterday I posted a photo of a Matisse, displaying how Matisse emphasized shapes in order to animate the flat surface. This use of shape is happening in "Window." Solving "Window" will be more difficult, as I insist both the perspective space, and the pictorial three-dimensionality of forms, are crisply perceived; which is seldom true of Matisse. Van Gogh does the play between shape and perspective wonderfully. I mention Van Gogh in yesterday's post about the insistent flatness of the picture plane. I will show a photo of one of my favorite Van Gogh's to illustrate the problems now arising in "Window" and how one great artist solved a similar problem.
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May 2024
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