It's all new again

Details of two works in progress (11.25.20)

It's a great feeling to follow through on giving old ideas new life. In this case, I'm referring to works from 2013, like A Hazy Reverie and Channel (the former (the former is in a private collection, while the latter is in a corporate collection. I mention those paintings because at that time, the overlapping hard-edged forms felt like something I could explore, but at the same time, I felt like there was something limiting about that work. The problem is that in the making of that particular body of paintings, I'd already started to move on to newer ideas in my head. So, I did just that.

The thing is, there was something about that series that stayed with me: a vertical diptych titled, Everything Happens At Once (seen above, currently in a private collection). It's a black and white piece, composed of two 36" x 48" panels. It was the most successful of the group,  I think, because of the sense of movement and I kept it relatively simple compared to other works in the group. It also felt the most accomplished, the one that was the most daring of my 2013 works, aside from We Dance to Pray, the 13 foot wide piece that I painted on the wall during my show, Presence. 

Flash forward to now and I've once again found a space and time to consider some of those older ideas in a new light. I stopped making those paintings because I'd done about 14-15 in 2012-13 that were of the same concept and I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue with those ideas just then. Once the show happened, I no longer felt that I wanted to continue along that same road and, as is my habit, I started anew. Recently, I had an opportunity to have my work presented for consideration for a commission. The work that had a good response was a piece from 2013 that had sold already. To remedy that, I made a new, smaller painting that had some of the same attributes. I don't usually like attempting to make something that was of an older concept, but for some reason, I jumped at the chance to do this painting. Thinking about it, I realized that I'd still held onto some of those ideas, hoping to explore them again, which is what I'm doing now. 

Since 2013, my work has changed and gone off on some interesting routes, but now I'm happy to have two distinct bodies of work to pursue that offer different challenges and interest for me. The glyph works of the past three years has been great in terms of moving my work into uncharted territory, where every step is a journey unto itself. This work is very experimental. The new iterations of concepts from  2012-13 are very different in terms of how they are approached and executed. There's already a conceptual template with this work that doesn't exist with the glyph pieces. However, that template doesn't make the new work any less challenging. There's just differences in thought and process between the two ideas. 

TM

 

Stretched thin, holding too much

A new untitled work in the studio: 12" x 12", acrylic on panel

I've been making some new, small, non-objective paintings over the past week, of which the above is one. I'm returning to these connected, elongated forms that I started working with back in 2013 with paintings like Channel, which I showed in my solo show, Presence, at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery. I felt something about the forms and constructed spaces I used then, but, as has happened in the past, I felt that I couldn't really continue making paintings in the same way, even as I thought then that there was more to investigate. Instead, as how it happens often, I went down another road and set about exploring the glyph forms that I experimented with years ago (late '90s). So, here we are seven years down the line and I'm once again digging into the past and bringing something forward (art as time travel). 

The paintings I did in 2013 weren't about the body, but they spoke to the conditions of the body as being acted upon by external and internal forces. The main paintings I'm referring to measured 72" x 24", dimensions that a human form could fit into. I looked at these canvases more as mirrors reflecting a myriad of possibilities or incarnations for the human body. It's the human body being acted upon that's spearheading my latest investigations. The social upheavals of the past few years in the U.S. over the relentless and senseless killings of black and brown men, women and children by law enforcement and especially this year with the backdrop of the pandemic, the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and white supremacy being enabled by the president (and followers) has been almost too much to bear. Combine that with the absolute criminal anti-Black and, frankly, anti-human policies of the president and the Republicans making each day a stressful unknown and you have a recipe for mental and physical breakdown. 

The trauma and stress that I have because of all of this is both physical and mental, internal and external. There are days when I feel like my mind is being stretched so thin that it might snap from attempting to comprehend all of the anger, hatred and outright criminal behavior coming from the GOP, the president and their followers, not to mention having to adapt to how rapidly things went bad. The new paintings are shaping up to be avatars for a lot of what I feel is going on within and around me. The forms within the paintings seem to contract and stretch against the boundaries of the panels at the same time, reflecting the conflicts I feel internally. 

So far, I've only been working on small paintings (12" x 12", 14" x 11"), getting a feel for how I may approach the subject matter on a larger scale. I feel like I'm in a good place with how things are progressing. I keep finding novel ways of dealing with a limited set of forms, and a limitless amount of potential colors to use. It's a good place to be. I'm pretty sure that I'll start working on the third five foot canvas I have here this week. I'm feeling pretty confident about handling the work on a larger scale, so I may as well get going on it. I have three, almost four, small panels completed and will have more done by the end of the week. 

I'm not abandoning the glyph work, but I am reassessing how I want to work with those forms and reconsidering the proper formats for them. I'm currently feeling like they work better on a smaller scale than, say the 60" square canvas I just finished today. I also think that they work better on panels or heavier paper instead of canvas. I'm looking into making some collages with paper and cardboard glued together instead of adhering the paper, etc... to another surface. There's a lot of work to get to this week. 

TM

A look back: Roam (Blue), 1999

Roam (Blue), 1999, mixed media, 33" x 48"

I've been thinking about some older work for a while now and this piece in particular, over the past week. I don't know why, but I've felt the urge to unwrap some older work and post them up on IG for "Throwback Thursdays". More importantly, I just haven't just looked at a lot of older work in a while. I need to document a ton of work, but haven't figured out how that will work with Covid, especially with the sickness and death counts getting worse all over the country again. I need to order a light kit soon, right after my next payment comes through. In the meantime, I'll just pull out works unwrap/rewrap them and at least take some studio shots of them, until I feel safe having someone come over to shoot a bunch of work. 

This piece (above), is one of my favorite older works. I made it out of wood scraps, plexiglas and hardware. At the time, I was heavily interested in expanding my idea of what painting could be and wound up suspending a sheet of painted plexiglas above the wood surface and adding another piece of plexiglas to the bottom. Movement, color and materials were the things that drove the making of this work. One of the challenges of Roam was how to integrate the hardware into the work.This was the first time that I was attempting to have a "floating" surface, so I spent a little time figuring out how to make that part work, in addition to choosing what the image was going to be. To keep things simple, I chose one color and that was black.There were a couple of darker elements already and I felt that the black floating above the main piece would create just the right amount of counterpoint to the other colors. An unexpected treat were the shadows created when the piece is lit from the ceiling when installed, creating another layer of visual interest. 

I also liked working with the plexiglas because it was just thick enough to create a layer of distance between the viewer and the painted surface (the plexiglas was painted on the back). I painted the main body with three divisions which enhanced the feeling of movement with the floating plexiglas, which also echoed the bottom panel that was also divided into sections and had a small area of "cells" emerging from the bottom. 

I made a few pieces similar to this around the same time period ('98-'99) that incorporated a mix of materials with varying levels of success. With the other pieces, aluminium, enamel paint and shellac were major components. This approach ran its course and I returned to a more traditional way of making paintings on single surfaces around 2000. 

TM