Paintings in Chairs

These are mostly not staged --- there's simply a tendency to place paintings in a safe spot while rearranging the studio.  However a lot of ideas tend to grow out of this sort of regular activity.  Here are a  number of  seated-paintings I've documented over the past months.

a different direction

Well maybe not so new...but somewhat so:

Hard to articulate what's going on here since it's only days old. The subject matter is the same I've been working with for past couple of months, but here the process is even more evident and layered. There's almost a rough-hewn quality to the painting. The green is inspired, I am sure, by the bright new- leaf  growth on the trees outside  my studio window. Paintings do have a way of staying in sync with the seasons.

Studio window overlooking Charles River and Moody Street, Waltham, MA (and Brandeis in the distance!)

I checked my "list of references" post from 1/29/14 about repeated themes in the work, to see how many are still at play: 

Cartoon influence:Yes, still see this in current work.

The body: Yes, still see this reference.

The landscape: For sure see reference...more so, even.

The studio: Not so much. This might be the difference between painting during winter vs. late spring.

Past tendency of exposing painting panel at edges: Yes, this theme remains an interest, takes different guises. I think it also has to do with my over-arching interest in silhouetted form.

Another variation on the same theme is below, from earlier in the spring--a de-saturated, overall

simpler version. Something different it has from the painting above-- a sense of buoyancy.

latest

 

 

 

 

 

 

Framing (or People, Places, Things)

 Studio journal, 1/29/14.

Things or references cropping up in paintings lately:

   Comics

   The body

   The landscape

   The studio

   Past tendency of exposing painting panel at edges.

Spacey

 

This work from late summer into early fall 2013, shifts between the painterly poles of establishing pictorial space versus the "paint- as- paint" grit of the actual surface.



 

The silhouetted forms at once both assign and deny a certain spatial depth.
 

  

   

Now, late-fall,  a "surround" or framing

device  has developed that establishes another level to the fore-mid-background distances. It's a sort of fore-foreground.

 

 

 And most recently, not only is the cropping/editing coming from

the framing device, but is apparent in the imagery itself--how much (or how little) information is needed?

 

 

 (And I guess the idea of working with silhouetted forms is yet another form of editing/decision -making.)

What It Is And What It Isn't

Describing Geometry

I recently had a studio visit from two painters, each of whose work I really respect. A comment during the visit has stayed with me. It was about how the radiating marks in my newest paintings,"describe the dimensions of the panel."

I've been aware of this as a recurring tendency for a while, but it is helpful to hear someone else find a way to articulate it.

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I later thought that this sort of modular formation (pictured above) begins to describe the dimensions and geometry of the space.

Apflebaum, floor piece (at top), Morris, felt piece (at bottom).

Above is a shot of my studio wall  where two images of work by artists I admire that have hung longer than any other of the handful I have up. For a long time I couldn't make a connection between these works and mine.  But now that I see the theme of describing dimensions, or geometry, as central to the work itself (and importantly, how it dictates outcome) I am beginning to see a link.

detail, Polly Apfelbaum, floor piece

detail, Robert Morris, felt piece.