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Informed
by early spiritual works painted on easily transported flattened metals,
I have chosen the Biblically charged fruit and wine as subject matter on
a metal plate. Today, aluminum lithographic plates are professionally
prepared to absorb oil and are ideal for heavy applications of oil
paint---and my vanitas dialogue with the ephemeral la dolce vita.
At
left: Apples and David,
oil
on aluminum
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Pair
Series:
Pears
(private
collection),
oil
on aluminum
Pair
Series:
Grapefruit
oil
on aluminum |
Manipulating paint on a
surface is an active experience between the hand and the mind, the body
and the media. My current
still life paintings examine formal relationships between texture,
color, compositional size, and media. For me, the manipulation of living
substance includes experimenting with glazed grounds and thick oil paint
on a variety of “canvas” surfaces. Early fresco surfaces were
replaced by easily transported canvas and wood panels. Carefully
prepared metal plates were also a popular surface for oil paint.
Today,
aluminum lithographic plates are professionally prepared to absorb oil
and are ideal for heavy applications of oil paint. In the No. Two
Series, I glaze finely sanded lithographic plates with several layers of
brick red oil primer and allow it to rest overnight. Before the glaze is
completely dry, the compositional draft—the oil underpainting—is
started. As the oil paint dries and more paint is added, cracks often
appear giving the pairs of fruit a sense of time and history.
According
to Oliveira, the painter experiences paint as a “living substance.”
It isn’t something “you cover a canvas with.” Painting is an
almost sacred experience between the painter and the paint. The product
of that experience is an object that can be shared by all. |
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Click
on the thumbnail below to view larger image.
Drawings
from the exhibit
"Revealed" |
Each
day is new, so each drawing—with words written on the back—lets me
know how I’m doing… I now have 110 drawing-diary pages… I refer to
these diaries as “tender compulsions.”
Louise
Bourgeois*
Like
Bourgeois, I like to think that the figurative drawings filling my
c-files are “tender compulsions.”
Drawing
is as
fundamental as breathing. It is waxy crayon scribbles across
construction paper, etched marks in a stone, red earth staining
stretched leather hides, the glowing pixels on a screen, the lyrical
calligraphic brush mark, the velvety charcoal tone, the detailed
architectural rendering… Drawing is the beginning of a mental and
physical process that culminates in a visual object—it lets us know
how we are doing.
Each of my Revealed drawings
catch an artist in the process of making art. Working with
graphite, black chalk pastel, sumi ink and gouache, each figure emerges
from the paper’s surface, revealing the mysterious process of
creation.
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