Sandpaper Factory

I've been back in the Sandpaper Factory for a month now thanks to Scott Ketcham's artistically generous spirit.  This is the third Summer he has given me rein over the space while he is away at the Vermont Studio Center (I MUST go there someday).

I've been getting tons of work done and am absolutely thrilled about it.  I am also currently thrilled about the opening I will be having in the space on July 21st.  My girl Zheyu will have some work up as well; she has been busy making gigantic things in there lately. Check that link I made through her name in that last sentence, her work is amazing.

 Lots of portraits have been happing.  Originally I started making them as practice for a piece I am doing for a friend, but I've been getting into them a lot more than I imagined.  I'm having a lot of fun working the oil pastels in with the paint and searching for a rhythmic balance back and forth between them.  This portrait above kinda looks like there is a swollen mouth situation going on, but I think I'm over it.  I suspect that my precision in portraiture will increase with more practice.  While I do care a lot about the growth of that precision, I am equally as invested in the compositional quality of each piece.  I want to add another sentence here figuring out that equation and what it means for my paintings, but this is all very new work for me and I am still working on those answers.

Been getting outside a bit too:

And what I feel to be an obligatory "Serious Painter" portrait.

I truly hope that if you are reading this you will be able to come to the exhibition.

"Summer 2012"

July 21, 2012

7p-9p, party to follow

83 East Water Street.

4th Floor

Rockland, MA

Painting In One Hour Stints

Yesterday a friend asked me how I decide what to paint.  I didn't really know what to tell her. Do these images really just come to me?  Are simply the result of the casual image logs I make through my bias filter throughout a day?  Is there something I want to say and therefore come up with an image? 
I think that it has been the latter for me at times; in my political and suicide paintings I used that format pretty directly.  The past several years for me though, ideas and images have seemed to form more closely together making It increasingly difficult to tease apart, and answer questions about my decision making.
My most recent work (shown here and in progress) is the closest piece to contain more of a  separation between idea and image than any of my work over the past several years.


I don't know what comes first but goes something like:
Idea: How do I feel in this space?
Image: Still life of anything for a pink color study.
Idea: This is a special place that should be recorded.
Image: Cathedral ceiling surrounded in pink.
Idea: The transition of a space from Nana's home to my studio to Kevin's home.
Image: Contrasting styles and patters and emphasis on color transitions.


My studio rhythm reflects this back and forth.  I usually paint for about 45minutes to an hour and then spend about 20-30minutes looking at the piece while allowing myself flip back and forth between my questions and concerns about what is going on.


So still, I have no answer for my friend and I guess that is fine, but I would really like to work that out so that I can have a more fruitful conversation about this with my students.

Practicing Studio Practice

Back in the studio.  Working there on a piece for a friend and from home on a piece for me.  Here are a few shots of the evidence to support that information:

organization.

prep.

(partial) mess.

happy hand

too bad it is probably letting tons of horrible chemicals into my boddy.

work in progress.

Zombies

Things I'm into right now:

• Zombies

Missing Mandible Melvin
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
20 x 16 inches

• The Walking Dead (Zombies AAANNNNDDDD COWBOYS?!!)

• Paying so much attention to these things that I have dreams (not nightmares) about the Zombie Apocalypse (widely know  as The Z.A.)

I just received my first issue of the magazine New American Paintings (which, let's be honest, at almost 200 pages and a high quality binding... it's a book.)  They consider it an experiment in art publishing and it is in my opinion the most important publication on modern painting in the States (and it is all put together right here in Boston!).

Anyway, I was psyched to get into this edition and see paintings from Summer Wheat bringing some of my favorite things together, Zombies and Painting.  If she could work a cowboy in there somewhere I'd really appreciate it, but I'm satisfied for the moment.
Wheat has pushed Zombies into the lead for me in the ongoing Zombies vs. Vampires debate.  I'll recheck the issue when I see some amazing Vampire paintings; maybe something raunchy relating to Sookie and Bill could win me over...

Moldy Brain Eater
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
20 x 16 inches

Preacher
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
72 x 96 inches

Not entierly convinced that Preacher is Zombie related, but these are the three paintings presented in New American Paintings so let's just go with it.

Summer Wheat is 35 and originally from Oklahoma City, currently living in Brooklyn. You can check out her website here.
This is what she has to say about her work:

"I don't describe my work as "abstract" painting.  I see it as failed representational sculpture, and I love its failure.  How can I make paint three-dimensional?  How can I depict a subject matter that is more than its form?  These are the impossible questions that push me to abuse the purity of paint and uplift the awkward moments in human life.  My paintings are full of messy human content: dorkiness, disappointment, humor and loss.  They are impersonations in which the emotional content overwhelms the physical.  Fascinated by vulnerability, I exalt in the incomplete."