Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Fourth Volley





Done over three sessions in an open studio figure painting class. The next few will posts will be works coming out of there. Oils on vellum paper. I must apologize for the lousy quality of the photo. At some point I will learn to light things better and make Gimp do what I want.

I have the habit of working too tightly on paintings, which makes me take forever on them. I would like to loosen up a bit and just let some well placed strokes represent the subject. Kinda like Jenny Saville.

(p.s. eat it, photobucket.)

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Third Volley

Photobucket


Oils on board. Graphite. Thirty inches by twenty four inches.

An older one that recently was paired with the wood cut below for a show. I was playing with the idea of creating my own saints. I don't know what they would be saints of, not having ever been Catholic for more than a day. I like the ceremonialism that happens in religion. I also like the iconography, and while I'm not a fan of it, I can appreciate the suffering. So I wanted to play with illusions of halos. Like how in graffiti you see crowns floating above things. I thought, why not a helmet? Who is more saintly than a soldier? And what better way to set up a dichotomy between that which is holy and that which is barbaric, than start playing with the idea of combat. I'd like to do a series of these, soldiers as saints, or saints as soldiers. To bring that which was more than human back down to a human level.

When I look at depictions of saints, or Christ, I don't see blood as holy, I see blood as terrifying. And then I see the humanity of it as something to be admired and holy. And by humanity I mean lack of supernatural, people bleed, feel pain, suffer. I think religious imagery can be used as a metaphor or vessel to convey those feelings of pain, or joy.