This is for all of you who sneer at AI as unoriginal copies made with an unworthy artistic tool. I went one last time to the Degas/Manet show at the MET and was struck by how many times they attempted to copy each other. I decided to take up the challenge and do my own "copies" in my own universe. I started with Manet's Ham, thinking it might be easier, then moved on to Degas hat shop. I tackled Manat's painting of Mary Cassatt at an exhibition, Degas' bath, and finally Manet's painting of Morisot grieving--a heart wrenching painting. I think I succeeded in this homage especially in the one of Morisot in grief. I put myself in there thinking of Kurt. AI ain't bad...it's just another tool in the paintbox. Remember R. Mutt?
P.S. I forgot to mention that as I was working on Degas' bath. I kept getting blocked by the AI program refusing to render the image saying I wasn't meeting their community standards.
I fell in love with the work of Manolo Valdez, when I first saw his show at Marlborough in Chelsea. His large (approx. 80" x 100") oils on pieced together burlap knocked my socks off. I then discovered his sculptures and recently at Marlborough's summer show, a piece using cut paper. Looking at all of these together you can see his singular vision unfettered. Makes you want to cry.
And for us the struggling artists, I discovered, Eva V, Huile Sur Toile by Manolo Valdez. A high quality art print on canvas approx. 16"x20"—it might keep us warm at night—with no tears.
The sky reminded me of the Hudson River School of American painters. These painters were devoted to an idealized portrayal of nature—a new garden of Eden. In this evening moment, tiny human beings and "nature" were coexisting peacefully. Even a digital camera to capture this pixelated manifestation of God. The Garden of Eden is on 14th Steet—really!
I paint in both oil and acrylic, recently mostly in acrylic since I haven't saved up enough to put a first rate air exchange system in my new studio. I am still painting in oils though since I am taking a flesh eating, oops, make that flesh painting class at the New York Academy of Art. I decided to add to my repertoire and take some very traditional classes. I am also studying at the Educational Alliance Art School, in the "reminds me of graduate school" continuing in the class taught by the wonderful abstract painter, Cora Cohen.
At the Academy we use the old techniques. In Alyssa Monks class, we started by coating the canvas (which was supposed to be triple-oil primed linen) with a mixture of an earthy red and greenish earth and linseed oil. We then wiped, scrubbed or brushed off paint to reveal the figure defined by it's lights. It is a forgiving way to work since you can really move the paint around. We then mixed a palette using only dark red, cold black and white creating fifty tones of warm, cold and neutral to start. Now we are painting the flesh using very small brushes and laying in tiny areas next to each other to build out the figure. Luckily we have two more weeks to complete the figure completely covering the "Night of the Living Dead" underpainting.
This type of methodology is a hard challenge for me. I like to speed paint, throwing myself into the process and attacking the canvas. I love big canvas, big movements and at least a two inch brush. I typically think about my paintings for a long time before I start but then try to paint them as fast as I can so the gestures have a freshness even to myself. It follows that I love the work of Louise Fishman.
Below is a new painting done in the same week as the above. Seems silly, but I get a charge out of doing both. I love the process no matter what I'm producing. Of course, they do refer to an artist's life work as having a studio practice.
There is a major Francis Bacon show marking the centenary of the artist’s birth in 1909, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. I've been several times already and also attended the all day symposium. The exhibition hosts together many significant works from each period of Bacon’s career. The thing I found most exciting was that he was trying new methods and ideas in his paintings at the age of 70+. One of the later paintings that really sent me was "Jet of Water" painted in 1988.
I'll be going back again several times I'm sure before it closes. I'd say I'll see you there but you might not see me. In case you don't know, I love bright orange and wear it a lot, so it occurs to me that this show is one of the few places where I am truly camouflaged.
One of the lectures was about the archaeology, transportation, reconstruction and exhibition of Bacon's 7 Reece Mews studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin was humorous to me in its absolute devotion to Mr. Bacon. However it was gripping in the depth of illumination of how Bacon worked. Over 7,000 items were found in the studio and all of them were database catalogued before they placed them back in their exact place in the reconstructed studio. They even took the walls section by section. I loved that he used walls as his palette, and I wish I'd been there to drink some of the champagne from the many empty boxes he threw at one end of the studio. A circular mirror hung behind him when he worked. Bacon might have turned and looked at the reflection of his work, perhaps looking at the structure in a more abstract way. Pieces of thick corduroy and things like cotton wool were found in the studio, which Bacon used to impress into wet canvas. And one last note, so no artist should ever be ashamed by their methods, cut-out photo heads of George Dyer with number of pin holes in them and paint all around the outlines, suggest they were used to trace Dyers profile on to the canvas.
O.K. you've guessed I'm now deep into the cult of Francis Bacon, if you are too...enjoy these vids!
As you know, I've been away and will be off again this weekend for another week. I've been traveling in places short on cell reception and internet access. I actually had to make a call last week while standing in a swamp in two feet of muddy water. I used one eye for dialing, the other for tracking a few alligators who were lazing nearby. I'll blog as much as I can meanwhile and then I'll be back for a good long stay. Nice to be chatting with you again—I suffered from severe blogmissitis!
Continuing with our media thread, Stacey Williams-Ng is painting a new series in which the paintings are a response to the significance of social media, and in particular, to status updates. As we know all too well, status updates are a mainstay of social applications like Twitter and Facebook, answering the question “What are you doing right now?” The result is collaborative and democratic—everyone is visible, and equal.
In her heavily textured oil paintings, figures are seen performing mundane tasks, such as cooking pancakes or reading while other more quixotic pieces contain no explicit narrative other that the status update that inspired it, such as the peculiar “Rafiq A. Spring…the end of my winter of discontent or just the next pithy chapter?”
Continuing yesterday's discussion, I've been translating what Lynn said into the rubric of art. There I always try to be in the moment since I feel it is the job of the artist to be honest in what they paint. It is easier to paint what we think an orange should look like and much harder to paint the true image of a particular orange—a map of shifting color and light.
One of my favorite works is "The Green Stripe" c. 1905, a portrait of Matisse's wife. An audacious Fauvist work with what we assume to be non-naturalistic color in a human face. People were shocked. Matisse is reputed to have said that painting his wife was the same as painting a sack of potatoes. It makes one realize that Matisse was boldly looking and unafraid a to paint what he saw.
These are some of my earliest still lifes. You see how I grapple, trying for each thing to be itself.
I'm looking out the window and it's raining. That's good. Last night I saw one of the first signs of spring — yellow forsythia blooms in Central Park. The farmer' s market out my window is full of daffodils, hyacinths and budding branches. We're not really at spring yet but I can feel the promise. The images here represent the extremes of the season. The photograph of the tree holds today, my oil painting "Spring White" holds the glory and the gingerbread easter bunny house (made with a young friend) holds the kitsch.
Or more appropriately, the language of abstraction. Last week in an acrylic class I was taking, a student showed an abstract work and said that she'd like to paint realistically instead of making scribbles like that. It was a famous painting and I was bothered by her comments. I find it harder to paint abstracts because the good ones are all generated by a language of their own. Each abstract painter must come up with their own visual language and also invent something new (never spoken or heard before.) It seems like a monumental task. After class I floated around the studio. I took some images of the art leavings, stains on the tables, pieces of floor etc. They are certainly abstract, but tell me, do they have a language that speaks to you?
Susan Shaw is an internationally exhibited painter and photographer. Private and public collections include the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Israel Museum. Shaw is the recipient of two New York State Artist’s Fellowships and residency fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center and the Women's Studio Workshop.
" underpainting. 
Posts
