Space Room 48"X24" Oil/Acrylic on Canvas stretched over panelSo i guess what this series of painting is about, and probably what painting is about for me, is wandering, adventure, being lost. I always have this sinking feeling in the back of my mind or gut that I'm lost, that I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I don't know what life is about, I need to do something. A hole that I need to fill. I want my paintings to show this. When I start with a blank canvas first I make quick abstract image. In the image I always see a space so I fill it in at first in general and later obsessively, neo-baroquely. I wander these spaces trying to escape but every time I finish a painting it leaves me unsatisfied and I have to start over again. In a way I feel like i'm in Kierkegaard's first stage of life, the aesthetic, just trying to make the most badd ass painting possible. But I'm also trying to transcend this and wander into the ethical or, preferably, the religious, the spiritual. So sometimes painting for me is almost a sickness, an obsession. Something I have to do every day or I feel asphyxiated. But at the same time, I want painting to be more like a religion. I'm using painting in a way to try to wander out of painting and into something bigger. Like how Buddhists attach themselves to meditation and dharma in order to rid themselves of attachment.
I'm looking for the beauty in being lost. I'm trying to realize that I would not have started looking for this “thing” if I hadn't already found it. I'm born with this sickness that makes it hard for me to leave my easel and have a normal life and I'm using it to try to transform it into something else.
Stuff comes up and I get stuck on it like pyramids, multicolored berries, palm trees, water slides, tigers, blue birds and mostly the little guy. All this is to give a narrative continuity, to try to stick with a theme and see where it takes me.
purple slides 42"X40" oil on canvas
So that's what I have to say about this. Any comments (preferably things like...”you're full of shit and this is why” rather than “awesome, dude) are much appreciated. I've never taken any real art classes, just continuing ed ones...so I don't really know how to write about art or do critiques or anything.
Time Machine 34"X34" Oil on Canvas
Thanks for taking the time to read it and check out the newer paintings. I got two more I'll finish soon and post them up.
brrrrrrrrrrrradner
5 comments:
I like these paintings quite a bit. Time Machine and Space Room are my favorites. I wish that I could study them in person. They rock. I don't exactly know why I like them. They speak to me on an intuitive level, probably something to do with the convolutions and obsessiveness.
Good work.
I am not exactly sure why, but in all honesty I have never been interested in why painters paint. For me, the viewer, it has never seemed like pertinent info, except in extreme cases, like with incarcerated or institutionalized individuals, but even then...
ahhhh
i can relate with your motive. put quite eloquently.
i was in the car with molly and my nephew listening to Pulp, "common people".
and i had to say that i sometimes wish i could come home from work and just play a video game without the knowledge that i should be seeing my work through. i want to be like common people in that way, though im very common in many other arenas....8)
on the other hand...
art is a great way to live. it is true that "purpose" and compulsion can seem to own you. even when you dont act on those impulses its sometimes worse on your consciousness than if you just feel obligated to make things.
i hear more and more about how success in something starts with a clear intent. i have not perfected that dynamic either, but you seem pretty clear about your expression
i think your work brings joy to people, i know ive have spent alot of time in there.
big conversation...need .. to. cut .. off
orange chair room and space room seem to be warmer spaces to wander off to...
cool thanks for the comments. i guess i shoulda said that the reason i wrote all that was that i was asked to give a little talk about artists and why they do art in a friend of mine's literature class...the talk went really awesome in part because i could organize some of my thoughts here. so sweet.
so tim i would totally agree that it's not usually too interesting as to why painters paint...it's almost like trying to explain why humans F each other. but i guess in part i think maybe my paintings are about that compulsion to have to make art so i was thinking about it.....cooooL
damn. amazing, all of them.
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