Monday, August 29, 2011

Derrick

Derrick 6" x 4"  $110.00
The Precisionist movement in the 1920's utilized geometric angles, curves, and clean lines.  Charles Demuth was one of the first artists to use Precisionist techniques.  I like his subject matter of the American landscape which consisted of industrial themes: steamships, grain elevators, factories and towers.  There were many oil wells in north-central West Virginia over a hundred years ago.  There was one left standing on top of a hill near my home when I was little.  It was dismantled years ago.

The Boating

The Boating 6" 4"  $110.00
Monet was perhaps the leading exponent of the new mode of interpretating landscapes.  His paintings have little structure or design in the conventional sense; they suggest, rather than depict, the outlines of cliffs, trees, mountains and fields.  He was intensely interested in the problem of light.  In that spirit, I depict a couple in a canoe with bright patches of color.

Dancing Bride

Dancing Bride 6"x 4"  $110.00
About 1750 a group of immigrant painters brought with them to America a style which has generally been described as Rococo.  An essentially courtly style, it had a hard going among the colonists who domesticated it, leaving its lightness and grace.  The style imported to America still had pretensions to aristocracy but was less pompous and more natural.  I was trying to imagine a colonial bride celebrating her wedding day by bursting into an impromptu dance.  I wanted also to convey her grace, charm, and prettiness and maybe hint at her social status and cultural refinement.

German Chocolate Cake

German Chocolate Cake 6"x 4"  $110.00
Still-life has historically dealt with the realistic rendering of material objects.  The very absence of animation or ulterior meaning has permitted artists to study the structure, surface, texture, color, and illumination of physical bodies for themselves alone.  I hereby give you a piece of cake unadulterated by extraneous considerations.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Amoeba

Amoeba 6"x 4"  $110.00
Lately I began to utilize the Surrealists' automatic techniques to paint biomorphic abstractions with almost a mythic content.  That doesn't mean that I'll paint fearsome creatures from mythology.  Fascinated by microscopic life, I painted a form resembling biological life at an elementary level.  The amoeba floats in an indeterminate dark space conveying a sense of relative calm and introspection.

Red Vase

Red Vase 6"x 4"  $110.00
I wanted to make the main appeal of this painting the delicate blending of the colors graduated from red to yellow.  By carefully controlling the mix of water and paint a subtle graduation of color is difficult but possible.

The Dream Doves

The Dream Doves 6"x 4"  $110.00
This painting is just an expression of the subconscious, conveying the idea of doves in flight.