Without Words

"Without Words," 5 x 5 inches, oil and acrylic on paper

The Blue Girl

"The Blue Girl," 5 x 5 inches, oil and acrylic on paper

Mourning

"Mourning," 5 x 5 inches, oil and acrylic on paper

Saffron

14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

The next in my exploration of hues- yellow-orange.  Second choice titles include aurulent, which somewhat inaccurate, and marigold, which fits the hue but strongly evokes the flower.   So, I'm settling on the word saffron, also floral in origin, that is almost as often as a description of color as the spice which was used as a dye.  Again, many pigments were used from cadmium, arylide, euxanthin, which seem less fitting for a title.   

Viridian

14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

Another exotic title for a hue on the spectrum--this time, blue-green.   Borrowed from the Latin word for green, the name often refers to a paint made with chromium-oxide pigment.  I confess I may have used any and all pigments but actual Viridian, but I have a fondness for the way the syllables roll off the tongue.   (Somehow "Carbazole Violet and Sap Green" didn't fit the mood of the image....)

Amaranth Purple

14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

So, I worked myself into a corner with the "red violet" post title.   I've been in my own rose period of sorts, so I have been making more than one painting in that part of the spectrum recently.  I've never been fond of the word purple, but Amaranth is such a lovely word and pretty closely matches the average of hues in this one.  

Beata and Abi

"Beata and Abi"
oil on canvas
24 x 20 inches

Spurred along by recent mood to complete works, I pushed through on this one that has also been around in my studio for an unmentionable amount of time in various stages.  It started off very loose like most of my work, but gradually became more detailed as the colors shifted.  The final stage was making the dog on par with the person.  Lots-of-fur.

Red Violet

14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

In the last few weeks, I've been trying to push some larger paintings along.  (I am keeping them to myself for now.)  When I hit an impasse on the major work, I tend to start side projects with tend to get abandoned when I find a solution.   The false monochromes were a side project that haven't gone away, but this is one that was cast aside and reworked countless times.  Although I find it hard to believe, it appears I started it five years ago.   The resulting color scheme is obviously far from a monochrome but, whatever it is, it is finished.    

Blueness

"Niebieskość"
14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

This was the third false monochrome that was exhibited in the 2014 UNCP faculty exhibition.  It was later accepted into a 2015 national juried show titled "Form and Void" at the Golden Thread gallery in  Hartford, Connecticut.    I quite liked the title of the show as it meshed with my image and concept. 

Redness

"Czerwoność"
14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

Another "false monochrome"  that was initially exhibited in the 2014 UNCP faculty exhibition.  Last post, I promised some explanation of the titles.  If you haven't guessed, the Blog post titles are the English translation of the original titles, which are in Polish.   Why Polish?   Aside from the artistic relationship I've had with the country in my travels there, I have been interested with how the language looks to most Americans, who typically read only English.  Russian's Cyrillic script is immediately recognizable as foreign but Polish has some accessibility in its Latin script. Yet, with its daunting use of successive consonants, it defies comprehension.   Even with practice, I confess, it defies pronunciation.   When I'm in Poland, I've thought at times it sounds like English is being spoken backwards--- and what's more Romantic than that?  (I speculate David Lynch might agree, if we were to track the connection progression from Twin Peaks to Inland Empire.)

Painting aspires at its best to be another unspeakable language.   Visually, I kept the contrast as low as possible to defy the image which is as apparent as its color.   It's a red face, of course, but can it be more?  The internet is overrun with easily digestible images; all here becomes cheap and loses meaning through abundance.   In real life, original objects are becoming all the precious and strange.   Many people are all the more uncomfortable in an art gallery or museum--they cling to the title cards to explain work. (I won't get started on museum headsets.)  For 99.9% of the audience who view this work, the titles obscure rather than reveal.    Of course, a quick Google translate would solve the mystery.  Czerwoność means redness.  (Or at least I think it does.)   Does understanding make any difference, or was there something indeed more profound in not knowing?

Obscurity

"Mroczność"
14 x 11 inches
oil on linen

The first of what has developed into a small series that I am tentatively calling "false monochromes." Like most of my working process, I have been making these concurrently with the small ones (and bigger work that I can't even begin to talk about.)    As you can see (or not see from the photo,)  I have been carefully controlling my color to make a low-contrast image.  Although the work is technically analogous, people have referred to these paintings as monochromes;  various pigments of violet and red-violet predominate.   This painting was exhibited initially in the 2014 UNCP faculty exhibition in the A.D. gallery and most recently exhibited at the 2015 Art Fields in Lake City, South Carolina.   I'll elaborate more on the title concept in my next post.

Joy

"Radość"
14 x 11 inches
oil on panel


Thought this would be a suitable image for the first day of Spring, and past time to post some of the works on panel that I have been working on over the last year or so. I've been exhibiting them nationally, but only recently realized my neglect in posting them online. So the last complete one is first, to be followed by its predecessors.   

Magician

"Magician," 6 x 4 inches, oil and acrylic on paper