The new triptych is looking promising. However, the studio is so clogged that I don't have much room to move. It is difficult making large paintings, as it requires me to wander though a maze of old paintings to see the one currently on the painting wall. Not good. I have neglected organization for too long. Paintings are stacked all over the place. I have also neglected my website, Mehrbach.com. So this is what I must do: I will devote the next couple of weeks to organization of website and studio. I have been intending to do this for a quite some time, but I have put it off because art-making feels better to me than organizing. Now is good timing. I recently finished a major work (Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014) and I am just beginning another major work (Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014). This means I will stop making art while I organize. This also means I will stop posting here during the time I am organizing. Please check here periodically. "I'll be back!"
In a way, yesterday I did begin the new painting. I show its naked, white canvases below, as it appears on my painting wall. Here is state zero of Untitled Triptych-08132014. The drawing is my futile attempt to make a diptych on one piece of paper. It just does not work well. There is something necessary about the physical, and real gap, between the two panels.
You can see a problem with accurate reproduction in the reproduced white canvases for the new painting. It is a very large area. The lighting is uneven, inconsistent in tone and value. Last night I watched Wes Anderson's film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel." I said out loud, "If I made films this is the kind I would make." It is the wrap of seriousness within humor that attacks me. That makes sense to me. I have had periods of my art making when this enclosure, and inclusion, has been present in my art. I believe, in order to live well, the serious aspects of life must be viewed within a sense humor that reflects the futility and limits of being alive and human. I must return to making art which fully reflect who I am and my core beliefs. Just in time: I am an easy step away from the completion of Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. It will probably happen today! So, what you see here, is Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 on the verge of its finality! It seems too serious to me now. Nonetheless, I needed to make it. Being an artist is seeking the root self. This painting was a step toward understanding the core requirements of my true art. Looking back is good because it informs me looking now. Yesterday's first drawing contains some of that sense of humor I require to feel fully me. I am happy it is coming back. Look for it in my next painting!
You may miss the changes in Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 during your first quick glance at today's reproduction of the painting. They may appear minor because of the small size of the reproduction. But, again, they are surprisingly important. Zoom in (its in HD!). In the left panel you will see the changes in the feet and legs of the woman, and in the right hand of the man. Mostly I worked on the woman's feet and legs. Her back leg moved forward, and her toes became defined. Her legs, one after the other, generate a vertical plane which produces a spatial corridor between the man and the woman. It is important compositionally, and emotionally!
For the last two days my studio time has been divided like this: First, Experimental drawing. Second: Enhancing minor elements of Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Yesterday I spent two-thirds of my time on the drawing. It is difficult to believe, but the decision making on the woman's feet and legs took well over an hour. Basically. I think I can sustain this daily rhythm of working for at least another week. As you know, I very much want to move onto the next painting, but I feel this is as important to me as "Joy of Life" was to Matisse and "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" was to Picasso (both reproduced below my work). First, please notice I have reproduced the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 with a white bar separating the two panels (previously I used a gray bar). This white separation is better, as it better approximates the white wall on which the painting will be exhibited. More important to me, Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is better today than it was before yesterday's work. The minor alterations are making it better and better. Reluctant as I am to continue to move this paint toward ultimate finality, I must admit it is worthwhile. With every action I feel I am creating the penultimate chapter, but no, there is more than one more chapter to complete. Yesterday I started by altering the feet of the woman in the left panel. I ended by repainting her legs and dress. Her rear foot is not resolved. I will start there today. The woman's feet function similarly to the man's right hand (in the right panel), i.e. it aids in defining the plane that is the artifice of the 3D world in which the figures sit.
Yesterday two drawings took up about half of the studio session. I like this division of time. It allows me to explore my current concerns, then return to the ponderous endeavor of altering minor elements within the mostly resolved painting, Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. The painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is very close to complete. Yesterday's entire studio session was devoted to it, obviously! It is time for final decisions about minutia. Let's think back to some of Henri Matisse's work between 1905 and 1910. Matisse made decisions not to over-detail things like limbs and extremities. In those works of Matisse, feet and hands often appear awkwardly drawn. The viewer is forced to look at those paintings in terms of color, composition, and surface (e.g. Dance of 1910 or Nymph and Satyr of 1909, shown below). As I return to complete Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 I will be making decisions about hands and facial elements (the minutia). This may not happen today. I think I need to step back and breathe a little before I proceed to finish it off.
My intense experimentation with drawing is leading me optimistically, one to the next. My investigation of the means to reproduce these drawings falls way short of satisfaction (Complaint: I just can't seem to reproduce the subtlety of the pencil line with its vast range of values. Also, I can't seem to get close to good reproduction without the white paper looking gray).
I am surprised, and nurtured, by my recent drawings. Each seems better than the last. Each feels more like me. Yes, I want to return to painting, and yes I want to begin the new triptych, but also, yes, I need to finish the diptych, Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 (which, after the recent series of drawings, feels very old and limited to me). Yesterday's drawing plays with the male and female form, with many contrasts and distortions. I am truly enjoying my playfulness. I am getting closer to expression of my true and unique self. This past week I have been doing a couple of things in earnest. First, and mostly, I have been drawing, using it to reassess the quality of my image-making and my form-making. Secondly, I have begun stretching the three canvases required for my next painting, a large triptych (side panels: 50X38 inches, central panel: 60X50 inches). Yesterday's drawing is rather unique in my oeuvre. It is a classical facade with strong volumes. I also believe there is a somewhat subdued, but very present, resurgence of a sense of humor that was present in much of my earliest figurative work.
The one thing yesterday's drawings have in common is their origination via a compositional bias. In the drawing above I began with an L-shape, and in the drawing below below I began with a U-shape. From there both drawings took off on their own. I believe these drawings are preparatory works for my next painting. That next painting is planned as a triptych. The compositional solution will be built around the problem of animating three panels. The two side panels will be smaller than the middle panel. I am imagining the smaller, left and right panels, will have single figures (male and female), while the central panel will contain interaction between the two figures. It is the problem of interactivity, between the two figures, that is behind the inquiry seen in yesterday's drawings. These drawings are studies in a means to instigate the interaction. In addition, I have always enjoyed inventing abstract three-dimensional forms. Yesterday's drawings marry my recent interest in human figures with my old love of robustly three-dimensional objects. Here, these two intense interests come together. The vigorous third-dimension created by the objects (the initial "L" and "U") carried over into the human figures. This outcome is very rewarding.
Every one of these drawings was done in a spirit of adventure and openness. In process, each felt right and good. All three drawings are my large size (16X20 inches). All of them are different in spatial play. Yesterday, my overall thought process was the same as always. Even when I did not paint, I am looking for solutions for my painting. In these drawings I am asking questions about detail versus overall concept. I was exploring in order to finish the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. The solutions to yesterday's drawings will help me finish my present painting, and all my work going forward.
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March 2024
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