Friday, June 01, 2007

New Work, in Progress



(Click for larger image.)

This largish piece (about 60" by 48" currently untitled) has been consuming me for some months - it's an older work I've repainted innumerable times since it was begun in late 2005. The original subject is a model named Julianna, who posed for about three sessions at that time. No photos, video or digital manipulations were used.

The problem here lurks under the surface of all my post-2002 work: how do a series of related images occupy the same space without simply being juxtaposed? I'm trying to integrate the paint marks - which can indicate space or light on, behind, next to or in front of my memory of the model, with each other, getting them to flow naturally into one another - the effect is somewhat pointillistic, but the issue is not accurate light and color, but rather the inconsistent way light and color on the figure are both preserved and distorted by memory.

A loose, more or less modernist aesthetic interpretation governs most of the day to day painting choices.