Self-Portrait, Winter and Deer Heads- Reworked

Below is the final version (finally) of Self-Portrait, Winter- though I am now calling it Self-Portrait, January. Deer Head 1 and 2 have been reworked and Deer Head 3 is a new addition. And finally, two small portraits titled- Portrait One and Portrait Two. They are the first of, hopefully, a series of small portraits. Please see the website for detail images.

Deer Head 1- reworked

Deer Head 2- reworked

Deer Head 3

Self-Portrait, January (Winter)

Head One

Head Two

Meaning Vs Significance and Self Portrait in Winter Hat Reworked

The Wheat Sifters

Meaning is a man-made concept. Significance is real. However, the value of a thing’s significance is relative and can therefor be misleading.

That said, we have always projected meaning into things where there is none. It’s what we do. And it’s quite fulfilling. It raises the value of the significance of the thing (whatever that thing may be- a painting, a house, a country, a religion, our own lives). This is a phenomenon that is common with the practice of art, the study of art history and art theory. It, most likely, has existed since the beginning of image making and it continues to happen all the time. To be clear, I am not referring to meaning as in the standard visual metaphors, like a skull in a painting meaning immortality. Rather, I am referring to a much broader sense of the word. For example, in the book, The Rape of The Masters, Roger Kimball writes that a certain theorist came to the conclusion that the scattering of grain in Courbet’s The Wheat Sifter “can also be seen as a downpour of menstrual blood- not red but warm-hued and sticky seeming, flooding outward from the sifter’s rose-draped thighs.” An interesting meaning indeed. And we can see how the imagery might allow a contemporary theorist (having lived during and after the feminism movementof the 60’s and 70’s) might go there. But Courbet lived nearly a century before the Feminist Movement. This connection is completely irrelevant to the painting as the artist intended it. The only relevance can be seen through the eyes of a contemporary individual. The newly derived meaning adds mystique to the painting and to the legend of the artist, boosting the value of the painting’s significance and, ultimately the main goal, to boost the status and career of the theorist. An artist does the same thing. He or she will be tempted to insert meaning into an image of his or her own creation in an effort to make the piece more substantial in the eyes of the viewer. When in reality, quite often the artist doesn’t exactly understand why he or she made the image in the first place, let alone what it is supposed to mean. Meaning is often slapped on at the end and the result can be the opposite of the artist’s intentions- it can cheapen the image.

One of Richter's Candle

During this last crash in the art market I was working as a temp art handler in the basement of Christie’s auction house and was fortunate enough to witness one of the biggest beasts of the art market deal with the crippling crash. Before a catalogue for an auction is put together, a group of specialists meet in front of each painting and one by one, they discuss and determine the monetary value of each piece. This value is normally reached not only on the quality of the piece and the authorship but, also, largely by the story of the piece- the importance of the past owners, the roll that the piece has played in art history thus far, etc. The idea is that the meaning that the artist, critic, historian or even these specialists have inserted into the piece, through the means of a good story, will sky rocket the piece’s value and a collector will feel, if even falsely so, that he or she has gotten his or her money’s worth. In reality, this meaning is simply an add on and has nothing to do with the quality of the physical piece itself. But we love a good story, and so, normally we will pay extra for it. I carried a Richter painting, one of his candles, from the second floor of Christie’s to the loading dock in the basement. As I was on my way with the painting in hand, the art handler who handed it to me mentioned as an ironic aside that I might want to be careful with this one as it is worth over 13 million dollars.  In an interview, when asked about the high asking prices at the auction houses, Richter says, “…It’s flattering, of course, but at the same time it’s shocking…They do indeed tend to pay far too much for art. There is a huge discrepancy between the true value and the relevance of art and the insane prices people are paying for it.”

I was present during one of these meetings in the Christie’s basement of Rockefeller Center. The group of specialists were looking at a DuBuffet- not a particularly interesting piece by the artist. They were going on about the importance of the previous owners when the head specialist stopped the others and said that because of the crash, they could no longer base their prices on the stories behind the paintings. In the new market, it is only about the DuBuffet itself. It is now a question of how much does the painting look to be worth and not about how much they can make it worth. People are no longer willing to pay the high prices for the stories that go along with the paintings.

On mimicking:

The contemporary world does not need another painter trying to paint like Velázquez. Velázquez fulfilled his roll and it was a necessary roll in the timeline of art history. Those artists who emulate Rembrandt or Velázquez in their pursuit of painting a significant painting are simply emulating art history and not engaging in a dialogue with our current world and our current issues. This goes for an artist who emulates a more contemporary artist such as Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud. These two painters fulfilled, or in Freud’s case- are fulfilling, their rolls. They came to their styles based on their own conclusions. And an artist who makes paintings in the likeness of these artists is simply mimicking. Of course I have my favorite artists, Freud and Velázquez being two of them, and I have certainly borrowed and will continue to borrow elements from their repertoire, but I have borrowed in an attempt to further realize my own means towards reaching a painting. All developing painters do this. It’s a necessary way of looking and researching. The manner in which one comes to making an image in paint should be the most genuine and honest manner possible in relation to the current times. This desire for honesty has brought me to my current, confused state. Exciting but confusing. I am happy with this last self-portrait. I feel like it is the only self-portrait I could come to, if I am to be as genuine as possible. But perhaps the significance I see in it is a result of some sort of self-imposed meaning. Perhaps I am fooling myself with this desire for a genuine response to existing in our contemporary world and inserting meaning where there is none. Perhaps I am going down the wrong path. But to that, at least I can say I am going down the wrong path honestly. (Note: Since this entry I have painted over the most recent self-portrait. It has come to several different “finished” stages and though there was much that I liked about the painting, in the end, there was something that just wasn’t working. It’s best, after several weeks of work, to paint over it and start fresh then to blindly and continuously tweak it.

an early finished stage of Winter Self-Portrait

most recent stage of Winter Self-Portrait

A bit more on the use of photography versus working from life:

My choice to work from life is not something I think about often. It’s a decision that seems natural. However, often I am asked the question of why not take a photograph of the model since it would save time and money. Two things I seem to have very little. I suppose that photography is such a dominating visual medium today that my decision to paint from life must be evaluated from time to time. I have mentioned before, the specific technical reasons for my decision- a photograph is a static display of information. You may not obtain any more information than what is recorded for you in two dimensions in the photograph. Painting from life allows a constant shift of information with each and every second. From the model changing, from the light changing, from my position, my mood, etc- things are constantly in flux which provides me with an infinite number of paths to take the painting down. I can keep the painting open for as long as I wish and add new information for as long as my subject is there in front of me.

When it comes down to it, when the technicalities are stripped away- I paint from life because, for me, it is more fun. Painting from a photograph is incredibly important when first learning how to paint. Translating three dimensions into two dimensions takes an understanding of a specific visual language. A language that, for most people, is not intuitive. Of course, the camera is an expert at this and a photograph is a flawless example of translating 3-D to 2-D. It knows the short cuts. It knows how to condense an infinite amount of tonal information into a finite amount- the bare minimum that is needed for the human brain to understand that a represented object has volume within a represented space. Put simply, in a photograph, the camera has already done the hard work of translating 3-D to 2-D for you. You need only observe the decisions made by the camera in the photograph to understand the basis of the specific visual language of representational painting. A lot can be learned in painting by copying a photograph. In college, I made the decision to leave the photograph. I felt like I had learned enough from it and I wanted to better comprehend this representational language without the photograph as a guide. Mature painters who choose to use the photograph as a resource for their paintings and who already understand this language are able to not only merely copy the photograph, but to manipulate the information that the photograph gives them. This allows them to bring the painting beyond the limitations of the photograph. It’s not a question of which approach to painting is better than the other. What is important is that you truly understand this language of representational painting. Once a painter (who chooses to work from a photo) is familiar with this, then the photograph can become a handy tool assists in the process of translation and does not limit the potential of the painting.

Deer Head 1

Deer Head 2

A quick note on the most recent paintings- with the recent self-portraits and this series of paintings of the deer head, painting has become less about the final outcome and more about the investigation of the 3-D to 2-D translation. Through painting the same subject over and over again, painting becomes considered more as a verb and less as a noun. I reworked SP in Winter Hat after  a friend brought it to my attention that the drawing in the arm was off. I also covered over the red smear that I assumed was absolutely necessary. It’s a stronger painting as a result.

Self Portrait in Winter Hat

Self Portrait in Winter Hat

Last week I began and completed, Self Portrait in Winter Hat, and I believe it comes very close to what I have been after. (Two days vs. nine months (Coup d’Etat)) There are moments of complete, flat abstraction and moments that tend towards volumetric representation. The paint both references itself as the medium, the physical characteristics of oil paint, and at the same time comes together to reference skin stretched over the forehead or the side plane of the hat as it wraps back towards the sky, away from the viewer. The background has turned into a flat plane of green, turned vertical, and applied thickly like butter with a palette knife. The sky creates the illusion of atmospheric depth in which clouds exist in space. But before this illusion is taken too seriously, any sort of depth is denied by the flat brushstrokes at the horizon and, especially, the red mess that exists above the head. Both of which allude to the physical flatness of mere paint on canvas.

Though I feel this painting by no means captures a viewer’s attention like Coup d’Etat or Girl with Watermelon, if I could maintain this balance of realism and abstraction, illusion and the material, in a more complex, less straightforward composition, I think I could create some pretty interesting paintings.

A Painter’s Modern Day Dilemma

I am once again stuck deep in the throws of a painter’s modern day dilemma. This was the cause for much stress and frustration last year during my fellowship at the NYAA. I thought I had come out of it.

Two Nudes

Botticelli, detail, La Primavera

With the industrialization of the photograph, it was said that painting had died. Of course, what that really meant was that the photograph had changed painting forever. The ease of capturing an image from life and transferring it on to a two dimensional surface through photography meant that painting was no longer the authority in that very small nook of representation.

Magritte, Time Transfixed

In the painter’s attempt to make painting still valid, cubism and surrealism came about. Painters created images from reality that a photograph could not. In a way, photography forced painting to depths more substantial that simple reproduction of the real on to canvas. Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, etc. The dawning of psychoanalysis, the world wars, nuclear bombs aside- a major reason visual art went down the path that it did was because of the painter’s simple need to find validation once the photograph became the dominant form of visual reproduction. Everything else, all the movements fell into place, responding to the movement before, like dominoes.

There is the popular argument that to paint like the “old masters” is no longer valid, that representing the real through certain techniques that have belonged to the trade of painting for centuries is no longer necessary because we are living in a different time. Different times have different problems. Different problems ask for different solutions. I agree that we don’t live the same lives as Van Eyck or Caravaggio but we aren’t that different. And our world and our concerns still revolve around our own image, the human figure. And to completely disengage from our history and to abandon these techniques passed down through the centuries simply because we assume our cultures have evolved, is actually retroactive, not proactive. It is to deny where we came from and in essence, who we are. In fact, I would argue that today, more than ever, the image of the human figure is a dominant form in our psyche. And these techniques are a part of our history therefore, they are a part of us. And they can be expanded upon, but there is no reason to abandon them.

So many painters who have decided that they must make paintings different than the paintings of before, by default, tend towards clumsiness as if clumsiness is the only road a contemporary painter has left to walk down.

Andy Warhol, Campbell Soup Can

The artists today who do paint representationally continue to struggle for validity. After Abstract Expressionism it was hard for the artist to approach representation and when representation again found its voice, it was not with without irony. Even today, representational art is hardly ever found without irony or kitsch or nostalgia. There certainly is nothing wrong with addressing these three elements from time to time in a painting. I have. But they have become the three pillars of contemporary representational painting. They have become a crutch. They provide an easy answer for an artist seeking validity. And this is my dilemma.

Richter’s response as to what he is after in his paintings was perfect. He paints because painting is hope. Creating something good (as in ethically good, not quality) with our own hands is in direct defiance to all that is bad today, ie: war, famine, murder, disaster. And that’s it. That’s all the reason there needs to be. That said, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog, it is no longer enough to paint a pretty girl in a pretty landscape. To do this today is irresponsible. Though, I don’t want to rely on irony to carry my paintings either and I certainly don’t want to preach or lecture the audience about what’s wrong with this world.

I have found myself irreversibly engaged with the vocabulary of the representational language. And I have chosen to inherit the techniques of the past generations of painters and to expand upon these techniques with new answers from new, contemporary problems. I choose not to rely on irony, kitsch, and nostalgia as the only themes a contemporary, figurative painting can take. I want my paintings to be current, refreshing and to stand on their own. Where does this leave me? Where do I go from here?

Best Answer Yet… From the Book Titled “Writings”, Gerhard Richter, 1961-2007

From an interview with Christiane Vielhaber (pg 190)…

CV: Are you after anything at all with your art?

GR: Of course I am! But I’m not certain what to call it. At first there’s the inclination and the wish to be able to do it. That’s one thing. With that come the ardour and the fun of it. And then, secondly, independent of our aims is the pure human ability we have to do it. There’s a kind of division of labour. Some people do this and others do that, and all these abilities belong to the richness of humanity. It’s a hopeful thing, to possess this ability, and a good, humanistic thing. It stands in opposition to all the unpleasant things, such as aggression and malice, war and crime…

The Flea-Market Portrait and Death

Not the portrait I saw, but a prime example

The other day I was at a bar on the Lower East Side, or perhaps a restaurant. It doesn’t matter, it was the style of portrait that seems to fit the décor of so many trendy establishments today due to its nostalgic and kitschy qualities. I saw the type of portrait one sees at a flea market or tucked behind some boxes in the corner of someone’s garage. The flea market portrait is almost always executed in an unoffensive, heavy handed, amateurish style that brings to mind the weekend painter-hobbiest. And the sitter can be anyone’s brother or father or sister, mother, or friend, and yet, at the same time, he or she is someone unmistakably specific.

I suppose the charm of these portraits is, in fact, the nostalgia. Like going through old photos of unknown families from generations past, at a second hand store. The loss of the subjects’ identities due to the passing of time turn the photos into a novelty. If you can get past the charm and the kitsch, you are face to face with the mystery of the individual and eventually, you feel a sense of the passing of time, and further, a sense of loss. You come to the realization that someone thought highly of this person. Highly enough that the painter-hobbiest took up the task to attempt to record the likeness of this specific individual in paint, for themselves, for others, and for future generations. Then you ask, so what has happened to this individual? And this is where the sense of loss comes. Since the time that this record was made, he or she has aged and is that much closer to death, if not dead already. And what has happened to the painter-hobbiest? No one cares. Besides the small signature scrolled on the bottom corner of the canvas, the painter-hobbiest’s identity is unknown, if not completely irrelevant. Which is how it should be. These flee market portraits are about the sitter and, as the years roll by, they end up having nothing to do with the painter-hobbiest.

The individuality and the undeniable existence of the sitter in the portrait I saw seemed overly apparent. This, because of the position that the sitter took as he posed for the portrait. As if to underline the passing of the hours in real time and real space, he had chosen to rest his head on his hand and his elbow on the table. His head was heavy and to sit for hours for a portrait, he decided to rest it in his hand, to prop himself up against time and gravity. Had this painting been done from a photo, most likely, the sitter would not have chosen such a cumbersome position. As it is, as he sits in the painting, he expresses his own passing in real time, be it years ago, it is the same passing of time we experience, which places him in our world, which gives him a specific identity and existence.

It is the kitsch that makes it so much easier for people to hang a portrait of an unknown sitter in their house. No one wants a portrait, a realistic portrait, of a specific individual who is unknown to them in their home. But an old portrait is ok, the time has erased the identity, turned it kitsch to a degree, and it is now more about being an OLD portrait and less about the person in the portrait. The same rule applies for more contemporary portraits that are highly stylized- John Currin for example. (I am in no way saying that Currin’s paintings resemble that of the flea market painting- they are two different types of kitsch, on two very different levels.) Currin’s portraits are of  individuals, ie: his wife, but he has turned her into a cartoon, he is embracing the kitsch, therefor erasing her specific identity and as a result, making it easier for the owner of the portrait to coexist with. John Currin’s wife is no longer looking back at you in your living room, instead its some funny looking woman, who certainly doesn’t exist in your world, who is staring at you. And that is easy to live with. The kitsch is a buffer.

Morandi’s Bottles

Coup D'Etat, 2009

The large, multi-figure painting is finished. I pushed to try and finish it by the end of last month and as a result, I neglected my sketchbook and this blog. Since then, I’ve been trying to take a decent image of the new works which has proved difficult. I am trying to set up my studio with the right lighting so I no longer have to carry the large paintings outside to shoot them, especially since there has been constant construction outside the building here in the Navy Yard. Even the dust that collects inside the studio and a great deal on the surface of the paintings is borderline unbearable.

I am happy, for the most part, with the painting. I feel that it accomplishes what I had set out to do- whatever that is. There is a substance to the surface. The image feels composed of slippery color that weaves in and out of itself to form the people and the objects. Derrik’s proper left shoulder is as blue as the mountains behind him and the watermelon by his feet makes no sense. These are the “accidents” that make a painting interesting. I do spot, from time to time, others that add nothing to the image, and in fact, take away. It’s a fine line deciding when to go with an “accident” and when to “correct” it. A painting is not about describing reality. In fact, I don’t think it ever has been. It has always been manipulated to convey something that can transcend reality, to fit the mind of the times.

The byzantine approach to the figure and the style of the Middle Ages was intentional. It wasn’t that the artist/craftsman couldn’t draw. A figure was distorted, flattened and broken down into geometric forms and linear notes because the style suited the philosophy of the day. Man was humble and god-fearing (or at least was to be perceived as such) and according to christianity, was created in God’s image. So as a humble, god-fearing artist, one would choose to represent the figure in a style that does not dare replicate the likeness of what the christian god had created himself. One can go through time and see how the styles have changed based on the different philosophies of each civilization. The classical style of the Greeks was a style of rules and ideals, because the Greeks spent much of their energy struggling with the unknown, and then trying to contain it, to explain it, to put rules to it. The Romans borrowed this style but, I believe their hubris allowed them to push the figure further towards a more realistic depiction. The Romans ruled most of their known world, their reality. They were in control, and therefore, why not depict what they owned? Of course, there were still stylistic varieties at different points throughout the Empire. The idealized portrait of Augustus was shipped throughout the different conquered lands. And the idealization was to suggest that Augustus, himself, was god-like and to be feared. (The exact opposite intention of the Byzantine-christian style that would come hundreds of years later.) The Renaissance, of course, “reverted” back to the idealized, classical style of the Greek and early Roman periods. With the advances in science, rise in wealth and perceived stability, man was no longer concerned with being depicted as less than the image of God, but instead, (with a boom in science and wealth) man was to be depicted in all of his glory as an image in the likeness of the christian god. And with the rise in a humanist philosophy came a rise in interest in antiquity. The Greek and early Roman idealized style was therefore adopted as the style that could best fit the new pursuit of the ideal. Ok, enough of the art history. With the globalization of today, it is impossible to pin down a single style. The style of art today is a heterogenous compilation of randomness. And this, I suppose is, in itself a style, and quite possibly the only response suitable for the globalized world of mass information that we live in.

I picked up a copy of Gerhard Richter’s writings (essays, journal entries, letters, etc) titled appropriately, Gerhard Richter, Writings, 1961-2007. No sooner had I finished my most involved painting to date, Richter’s writings are forcing me to solidify, if not rethink my personal values as a painter. Painting from life is something that I believe is and always will be a key element to my work, just as painting from a photograph is to his. Whereas, he paints from the photograph to remove the influence of himself and his environment, I paint from life to invite those influences in to my work. I want the dialogue between myself and my model and my own personal values to be present in my work. One thing, however, that he speaks about and that I want to start doing in the next body of work is stripping the image of unnecessary information, including a bit of my own ego and the bravo of the technique. It will be like going from Rubens to Morandi. There has always been something refreshing and deeply satisfying about Morandi’s bottles.

Let it be paint first and a representation of the subject second…

The Large Multi-figure Painting in Progress

I finished Christophe’s figure, last Saturday, on the large canvas. The painting is getting close to being completed. I have finished Derrick’s figure as well. The major elements left to be resolved are Alan’s arms and hands along with finishing touches of the body, Julie’s feet and lower legs, most of Daniel, Liliana, and spots here and there to tie it all together. When all is done, this painting will have taken me nearly a year to complete.

"Fine Thanks, And You?"

I worked on another large watermelon still life/landscape at the same time, these past few weeks. Only, in this new one, I treated it more towards the extreme end of what I have been talking about in the past blogs- in terms of more texture/impasto and more gestural brushwork. I paid attention mostly to the manner in which the paint was applied- smearing, wiping, scratching, reapplying, etc. I allowed for accident as much as possible. And in the end, I wasn’t happy. There are moments I absolutely love, the series of thick green strokes of paint that run over a vibrating pink on the upper left side of the whole watermelon. The paint is raised high above the surface of the canvas and looks like it is suspended above the pink layer beneath. I love the glazing in the sky of oranges and spots of cool greys. And I like the single piece of the fruit on the lower right side, its simple, like some sort of calligraphy, an abbreviated note that implies a chunk of watermelon.

But that’s all.

The painting as a whole, gives off a sense of impatience, generalization, and a lack of resolution. Perhaps I was a bit impatient once I saw where the painting was going. But I’m glad I did it. I pushed it to the far end of something that has intrigued me- to see what might happen. I believe its good to get carried away from time to time and ruin a painting or two. You learn a lot. Most likely, I will crop the watermelon on the left and scrap the rest, using the stretcher bars for something else.

There is something to be said about the quiet, unassuming presence of the smaller watermelon paintings. The attention to detail. Time is slowed down for a moment in these. I enjoy the slow process of analyzing the surface of the thing in front of me and breaking it down into a combination of colors, inch by square inch. One gets lost in this process and,over time, things begin to fit together, the elements in the painting begin to fall into place and there is such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Its like being three quarters of the way through a crossword puzzle. The bulk of the puzzle is finished and the words already discovered begin to inform the ones left blank, and things begin to fall into place, one word after another. Its a very satisfying feeling and its what is happening with my large, multifigure painting. It is also something that never happened with the large watermelon still life/landscape. It is as if, in order to retain the gesture and the sort of, violence, in the mark making, I was never able to get past the preliminary stage of blocking things in ( the first stage of any representational painting where the local color, the general shape and light and dark masses are first determined- a long way before any detail is considered.)

I suppose much is learned in failure. Bringing the painting to that extreme has a helped to underline what I already knew- my paintings are strongest when they have elements of both slow detail and quick, gestured strokes. Moments where one can get lost in the intricacies and detail in one place on the canvas and then come across a violent tantrum of brushstrokes in another. Its important to have variety- these elements compliment each other.

Velázquez is a painter who understood this well. In fact, he made it his signature. The faces of a portrait is done with a delicate touch, the features have been observed slowly and carefully and then in the clothing or background, right against the face, the brushstrokes dance quickly and lightly across the canvas.

detail of brushwork on Julie's leg.

I feel like I am coming close to successfully combining both paces of painting in my large, multifigure painting. Each figure is composed of slow glazes juxtaposed against opaque, wet on wet (alla prima). There is a moment, halfway up Julie’s thigh where the brushstrokes become more gestural and flatten out a bit into nothing more than paint, as it describes a transition in tone. Alan’s figure is mostly done from layers of glazes, but then moments like his left breast and, hopefully, his arms, when I complete them, have a more immediate handling of wet on wet. Christophe’s face, now that it has been reworked (I couldn’t leave it as a smear, it wasn’t fitting with the rest of the canvas) is composed of opaque detail. His hand, the one holding the melon piece, is more of an open gesture- hopefully preventing the viewer from getting stuck at the edge of the canvas. The face has taken me several hours – the hand with melon, probably 15 minutes.

Detail of Christophe's portrait.

Detail of Julie's portrait

After attending the Dumbo open studios yesterday and seeing a few paintings here and there, I realize how incredibly important it is to have faith in the medium itself, to not try to have complete control over it, otherwise you run the risk of making the image stale and stiff. Let it be paint first and a representation of the subject second.

“What’s Up With the Fish?”

“What’s Up With the Fish?”

I suppose I should address the question since it comes up from time to time. And I am asked the same question now, in my new series that revolves around another food, the watermelon. As a figurative painter, I spend a good chunk of my time analyzing forms in detail. Occasionally, a specific form will strike me for whatever reason and my new found interest in it will run its course- this might take an entire series to get it out of my system. And sometimes, as in the case of the human figure, it will, hopefully, never be exhausted.

Fish are unique creatures. They come from an environment we know little about and their forms are incredibly foreign to us. They are the subject of many a monster story. Fish come in endless sizes and shapes, their colors range the spectrum, their metallic skin can glisten the brightest highlight or be dull and muddy. They can be some of the most graceful and beautiful animals and some of the most horrifying. Their varieties make them incredibly compelling from the standpoint of the representational painter. And their faces can take on the caricature of the human face.

The watermelon’s proportion is compatible with the human figure, more so than a lot of fruit. It is large enough so that it doesn’t get lost in a figurative composition. It is obese, “rubenesque”, bulging at the brink of exploding from its own fertility. It is a vessel of complimentary colors- rich, velvety reds against dark greens. The intricate pattern of light to dark green stripes run along its surface, wrapping around the melon, enhancing the volume visually. It can be easily personified. A delicate skin, encasing a heavy mess of red, wet, heavy innards.

Actually, both the fish and the watermelon make great visual metaphors for the human body.

When I was painting the nudes with fish series, I was aware of the historic, religious symbolism that a fish carries with it. The dead fish becomes a martyr. A thing of somber beauty. And, so, the figure takes on this characteristic as well. But, also, I wanted to play the soft warm flesh of the naked figure against the cold, slimy, scaly flesh of the dead fish- hopefully creating a slightly unsettling element to the paintings.

The watermelon, unlike the fish, is an object that doesn’t carry much art historical weight. There is not much symbolism attached with this fruit. This has allowed me to incorporate it more freely into the compositions. I have been using the melon as a metaphor for the human figure and the carnal, fertile, and excessive nature of our species. In my two landscapes with watermelon, I wanted to paint the melon as a fertile fruit at the peak of its ripeness, with an element of what is to come after- the slow decay- this is referred to by the dead palm tree in one painting, and the flies in the other. I hope that the absurdity of the image invites the viewer to see it as a reflection on the rise and fall of our own lives.

An aside: An interesting development in Art History- the Met recently cleaned the Portrait of a Man, which has been attributed for some time now to Velazquez’s workshop- just shy of being attributed to the man himself. Now, after having cleaned it, they believe, and other Velazquez experts agree, that it is in fact, an original Velazquez. Read the article: www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/arts/design/10velazquez.html?_r=2&ref=design

On the chaotic tendency of paint…and us(?):

An artist was painting a model’s portrait during a demonstration at the Academy. After about an hour or so into the demo the painting had reached a stage in its development in which it could have been considered finished. It was well painted and looked like the model on the other side of the canvas. At this point, the artist took a glob of muddy paint from his palette and flung it onto the face of the portrait. He then proceeded to smear the paint across the surface with a blending brush until the resemblance was no longer discernible. Someone watching the demonstration asked the question that we were all thinking- Why destroy such a nice painting. The artist responded by saying that it had been too easy. He then began to paint the model once again, bringing the face back out of the mud- eventually.

I believe what he meant by it being “too easy” was this… A painting is by necessity of the process, a record of a “struggle”. There is a history and a story in the paint itself once it has adhered to the linen. Through smearing, scratching, wiping off and reapplying, the paint is a record of the physical gestures of the artist in his or her attempt and “struggle” to create an image. These are the “flaws” and the “mistakes” recorded in the paint, and they are the most exciting moments of a painting. Standing in front of Rembrandt’s self portrait of 1660 at the Met, I remember coming across an area in the hairline, where the skin of the artist’s forehead and his wiry hair meet where he used the back of his brush to scratch through the fresh paint to the dry layer underneath to suggest a few dark, unruly strands of hair. This was a very exciting moment for me- it reminded me that though he may be one of the biggest figures in the history of painting- he still used the back of his brush. He still scratched and smeared and clumped and wiped and globbed. He still was human just like me. Also, in so many of Velazquez’s paintings, one can see a faint outline of paint that runs along the sides of his subjects (I know there is a term for this, almost specifically for this phenomenon as it relates to Velazquez)- as if one is seeing double. (Notice the ghost image of the Pope’s robe as it runs along his leg, or the black outline along his hand and the paper he is clutching.) This is a record of Velazquez’s constant reworking of the edges of a form. Over time, certain colors have faded, and the reworking that had been hidden when the painting was finished, has worked its way back to the surface, and so we are able to trace Velazquez’s steps. (There are also wonderful moments where you can see where he would wipe the paint off his brush right onto the canvas.) Many of Degas’ ballerinas have two or three right arms (in the drawings at least) as he redrew the outlines of a limb over and over again until he felt he had it “right”.

Times have changed. It has been said that Michelangelo destroyed all of his “bad” drawings to erase evidence of any flaw or imperfection that might be seen as a strike against his mastery as a draughtsman. This was a time when there was a canon for the ideal figure and man was the measure of all things, etc. But a pretty painting of a pretty face is no longer enough. (I’m not suggesting that that was all that Michelangelo’s drawings, paintings and sculptures were about. But he certainly, up until the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, celebrated the ideal man, as was the philosophy of the entire Renaissance.) There will always be painters to paint pretty paintings for those who wish to merely skim the surface of what it means to be a human being and perhaps have something nice to compliment their sofa. But as far as a painting is a reflection of a society, these artists are perhaps in denial and are not giving their audience enough credit.

The contemporary person is fully aware that they are a vessel of extreme complexity, contradictions and imperfections. Unlike Michelangelo’s man (again, pre-Last Judgment), today’s man is more often an animal first and a god dead last. We have shifted from an obsession in human perfection to an obsession in the complex and sometimes disturbing human psyche. Mainstream, contemporary film is a testament to this- no one wants to watch a movie about a flawless person. This would be utterly boring. And, to bring it back home- the same thing is true in painting.

Being colored mud, oil lends itself to our most primal levels of existence. In the hands of a beginner, it tends towards chaos then ends in brown sludge. Trying to fight this natural digression only makes it worse. A good painter uses this important trait of oil paint to his or her advantage. The artist, being prone to accident but struggling towards order, should allow for mistakes and a little bit of the paint’s inherent chaos. And in return, the paint will record life and give the painting itself a more lifelike existence.

PS- I’ve come to enjoy using the underside of my fist to smear the paint around if things are a little too “easy”. It moves all of the fresh paint at once and not in layers like a brush would.