Lakes and Couches

A collection of paintings that almost never happened.

The Lakeville Public Library / Jan 10th thru Feb 26th

10am-8pm (Mon/Tues/Thurs) 10am-6pm (Wed) 10am-2pm (Sat)

Ode to Dvorak , 36x24, oil on canvas

If We Don’t Agree I Won’t Talk Sh*& About You , 48x48, oil on panel

Don’t Overthink It , 48x48, oil on panel

Some People are Lakes , 24x48, oil on panel

Thursday , 48x48, oil on panel

Pink Erasers (diptych) , 48x48 and 48x12, oil on panel

Those Were the Days , 48x48, oil on panel

Metaphors are Lakes (diptych) , 24x48 each,

Palms , 42x36, oil on canvas

Shirts are like Lakes (diptych) , 24x48 each, oil on panel

Fleur Du Mal #1 , 48x48 each, oil on panel

Fleur Du Mal #2 , 48x48 each, oil on panel

Bacon , 52x48, oil on canvas

In the above slideshow there are some of the paintings in their previous lives. The yellow piece holding the scrolling figure eventually became Don’t Overthink It, and an animation I made mimicking the elevator blood scene from The Shining with red tape was a bit of a fail but the shapes were rigid enough to form the base for what became If We Disagree I Won’t Talk Sh&* About You. I am as concerned with how these actions and gestures look on film as the paint does on the wall. In this way- the paintings are very much derivative of my media work.

General Artist Statement: My work offers a forensic retracing of my steps. I am interested in authentic human experience, and the relationship between personal and human stories.

Lakes and Couches: These pictures are the residue of an aerobic and interdisciplinary studio practice. The images range from theater-like flats used for backgrounds in video work to things made specifically for transforming into prints; or stuff created for the sole purpose of recording painted actions. The panels are often re-used, re-purposed, cut, spun, or covered.

In the video above: Making a Painting (Ode to Maurice) I decided to share the entire painting process front to back including making the support for the image. Everything I know about being a working artist, I learned from my painting practice early in my artistic career. Painters just love their process, trust me don’t ask them about it. This explication of mine is part documentary and part Keystone Cops. I even bring you through a rudimentary and desperate advertising ploy near the end, because no painting process is complete without commodification.

The paintings are largely deconstructed images. Rather than traditional paint layering, I am unpacking the painting process in works like Palms or Bacon- where the lines are laid out like inventory. My marks describe a phenomenological space rather than a space described with linear perspective. They also denote activity, performance, or movement. The viewer’s ability to recognize these marks as objects depends on their distance, scale, frequency, spacing, segmentation, tempo, color and fluidity. How do the specific properties of oil painting relate to other more contemporary forms of visual or cultural exchange like product packaging or image resolution? In what ways can oil painting uniquely locate us in within a larger visual climate? Where is the line between recognition, representation, and resemblance?

These are archival inkjet prints made on museum rag paper by Singer Editions in Boston. These are the scans of the images pre-print. This was the final form I intended for these images from the start. The goal was to completely remove the background, and standardize the size of them so that their differences could be magnified. At this point, they are removed from oil paint completely, except that these lines could truly not have been made the same way without it. There is a bit of a medium confusion. We understand immediately, before we even know what these lines are, the system of mark making employed, even the perceived order in which the marks were made (we tend to see images from left to right in Western cultures due to our familiarity with text.) I have also always had a lot of interest in the way language effects how we see things. Once I tell you the title is bacon- it is game over for your imagination. The image becomes schematic, the lines symbolic of objects despite how recognizable they are or the likelihood of their physical arrangement.

Also a part of this series was the painting Butterknives, 30x30, oil on canvas (not for sale) and the accompanying print.

The two paintings above are from series but both in private collections. Because (or Radiator) and Tank Girl (or Ode to Maurice) both 48x48, oil on panel. Radiator was an attempt to make a single line into an image.

One of the byproducts of a 20 year studio stint is that I spend a lot of time alone in the studio. It is one of the things that made me want to work in other mediums. This amount of time in this box of a place is always a challenge, but it becomes the only way to work through dry spells, and inspiration is taken wherever it is found. This impromptu dance video above came after watching The Joker and ultimately the pitchfork was converted into a fourth eraser.

Above is a video walk through of the exhibit.

Pricing:

All paintings are $200 (Diptychs are $400)

I believe firmly that the hyper commodification of painting is the biggest threat to it’s authenticity. You and I work hard so that you can afford art. I am happy to take that little amount and make more. I am trying to be a part of a conversation, paintings are better kept in homes.