This
painting is an end product to a sporadic sequence of unanticipated steps, which
ended recently with attempts to brighten and invigorate. It started with a few
up-close shots of fabric I had in my possession: a neck scarf, large costume
jewelry, and a lace tablecloth with a floral pattern. I edited them to the
point of flatness, extracting traces of shadow and texture. I layered the
photos and composed the costume jewels around the rose patterns on the lace. I
painted the image because I felt it needed further experimentation; painting
being my preferred form of translation for this image, giving it grandeur,
presence, and the demand for attention that it was lacking as a digital image.
The digital image was simply not satisfying all my senses.
I bring a plethora of contradictions
to this work. Contradictions that, if not addressed, would mean a weak part in
the work.
I am interested in conveying drama of
theatrics; costume wear and extravagance. I cannot fully have contempt for
extravagance because I enjoy it. A painting of roses entertains the idea of
fake riches and the ridiculous, but it is as ridiculous to paint the alluring
and ornate as it is to decorate with them. A painting itself can even
contribute to this decorating. This work does not technically critique
extravagance at all, but it also does not seem to glorify it because it is
overly extravagant. The reflections are overly stated, and the colors overly
saturated.
“…An iconoclastic approach, sometimes
expressed in deliberate primitivism. Yet in a sense this type of movement is an
attempt to roll back to the tradition of vision to the earlier phase of
innocence, the paradise before history. These two movements, though opposite,
compliment one another.”-McEvilly
Another contradiction in this work is
the way in which the content is being represented. The primitively shaped
stars, recognizable but intentionally uneven, suggest a desperation to
communicate and represent. They are graphic, but hold weight on a painting and
in “real life”. Duct tape and paint proves to be a dynamic medium pair that
refuses my previous digital efforts with this piece.
I enjoyed the process, I feel as if I
defaced meaningless objects and gave them immortality through painting. This
immortality is problematic because the objects are still meaningless. Meaning
can be drawn from the formal aspects; the linen stretched on wooden bars true
to tradition. Wet on wet shades of green to depict transparency and red dry
brush to imply drooping and folding petals. Vine charcoal to confirm the shape
of the mark, whether right or wrong, I confirm it.
The use of this traditional material
in this work is not used according to tradition. The fragile charcoal is
driven, crumbling and diminishing, yet leaves a bold mark where its’ willed on top
of the paint.
The vertical black lines in the
background suggest a panoramic space. The lines huddle together in the middle
and spread gradually out over a decadent shade of red, which sits under a
floral parabola.
I started to make many aesthetically-based
decisions once it had taken several steps in painting form, because creating a
sublime essence of heightened beauty became of utmost importance to me at this
point, and it drove me to manipulate the painting towards having a flashy
quality. I forced the vanity I felt for this painting, and I believe it
manifested itself as the answer to the question of meaning I had for this work,
and I am not sure how I feel about it.
I proceeded to study photos of roses
until I could create a generic cut out of one. I numbered each cherry red paper
petal cutout in a spiral, the shape of nature. Ironically, there is nothing
natural about the accompanying processes or concepts.
I titled this work Three A.M. because
it is the time I felt so bold as to declare it finished. The work had finished
the journey from items, back and forth from my head to my process, to a fully
realized image composed of traditional materials.
“…All
these decisions by the artist carry content quite as much as form.”-McEvilly
It would be
interesting to entertain the idea of “content arising from the material (McEvilly)" of
which this artwork was made. I see digital as the opposite of traditional.
Working digitally on this work felt clean and detached, like I needed to prove
somehow that I owned the image. Once the image was composed of traditional
materials, the graphic aesthetic manifested in the painted version. I do not
know how often artists use traditional materials as content, but I hypothesize
that that is exactly what I did with this work.
Quotations from Art & Discontent by Thomas McEvilly.
