Monday, March 02, 2009

Studio notes 3.02.09


Two new paintings on paper from the Phenomena series.

Three weeks to go before I have to deliver the new works to the gallery for the show. Last week, I had a good studio visit with Bridgette where we talked about some of the recent works that will be in the exhibition as well as the vault room project.

The title of the exhibition will be Right Now/This Moment and will have two components. In the gallery, I'll be showing new and recent paintings and works on paper and in the vault room, I'll be interacting with the space with temporary drawings and possibly other media. I'm leaving the second aspect open to a more spontaneous interaction with the space.

The scale of most of the works will be smaller than in the past, with the largest paintings on canvas and panels being 36" x 36". Thankfully, I always work in a variety of sizes and going with mostly small paintings right now seems like a good thing to do considering the economic crapstorm we're in. However, I have been working on some larger paintings on paper that measure 50" x 50". Having done the works on paper for the airport, I've gained a liking for using thinned-down acrylic paint on paper. The paper accepts the paint in a way that canvas and wood panels don't and I love the results.

We also talked a little about the vault room project. The vault room is a smallish space in the rear of the Bridgette Mayer Gallery that's used as a project space of sorts. I believe that the space where the gallery is located was used as a jewelry business years ago, but I'm not sure. It's possible that the vault space was used to store jewelry or other valuables. As an exhibition space, the vault room is somewhat difficult, but it has been used to great effect in the past by other artists. One notable installation was done by Susan Brandt (scroll down), who piled various types of fibers along the rear wall.

At this point, I'm going to be doing temporary drawings and whatever else I decide to do during the exhibition. This part of the show is going to be a 'spontaneous interaction' where the objective is to make use of a space that I'm not used to working in. There is no plan for what I'm going to do from day to day, but something will change in there every time I'm present.

Even though I'm just about done with works for the show, I'm going to continue working just as hard over the next couple of weeks on new pieces and putting final touches on others. I'm in a good creative place right now and I want to keep making use of it.

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