I like to paint representationally, but with an eye toward abstraction as far as composition goes. I always thought that no matter how good a painting was at depiction, it should still work as purely an abstract piece. So that if you could unfocus your visual mind and not see it as depicting things, it would still work - just based on the composition, the formal arrangements of shape and color. I liked to use a lot of paint - almost a sculptural effect. Paint piled up in streaks and curls, here and there cut through to the surface with the palette knife.
Loved that palette knife! I had like, five of those. Different shapes.
My favorite single piece that I painted was: I had shot a couple rolls of film trying to catch the interplay of reflections on glass with the objects seen through the glass and those in front of it. I did a couple canvasses from one photo from that batch. It was a shot taken from outside the window of the Camden Ferry crossing the Delaware river, shooting into the interior where my (now long since ex-) girlfriend sat smiling in a black dress with a large floral print.
In the photo, the sun shining behind my head turned my reflection into a giant's shadow across the glass. It looked like my arms were raised, holding my head in my hands, but you couldn't see any details - I was a black silhouette looming against the reflected sky, with one shining eye glaring down (the camera flash). There were patterns formed by intercut lines, the play of shadows and forms across the grid of the tiled floor inside the main cabin of the ferry. The interplay of the reflected clouds outside and the big white flowershapes on her dress, the two of us - me in shadow, her in light. It all lined up very well.
I tried to paint it as if all of these competing forms had equal reality in one picture plane, rather than some things being reflections and some being shadows. I compressed it all into one pictorial space. It was a good job.
I gave the picture to her and I’m pretty sure she kept it for a while.
1 comment:
She either still has it or wishes she does. I'm sure.
It sounds amazing! I think artists should be sure to at least photograph their work before they part with it. But I don't think artists usually think that way, unless they're photographing it for a gallery or a portfolio or something.
Unless they're photographers, in which case. . .
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