Black Belts, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 x 7 1/4 inches.While I was working on this painting I had some decisions to make as to the level of naturalistic detail I would include, which is part of the "grappling" with the realism/abstraction issue I wrote about in this post. The objects that I paint are generally covered with textural details: rust and variegated color, and the wear and tear of hard use. Over the past year or so I've been leaving out most of this surface detail, wanting to emphasize the form and structure of the painting. Bits of rust can also add a nostalgic aura which I certainly want to avoid.
The long thin rectangle at the top of the painting went through a lot of changes, from blues to greens, before I settled on this color. I simplified what had been a band of grass in the background into a flat form, though it still reads as behind the yellow and black. This image has a lot more illusionistic space, from back to front, than many of my works.
Red Swoop, 2010, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 5/8 x 5 inches.Here is a different solution to the grass problem, in a painting made over a year ago. The grass, naturalistically depicted, plays off against the more abstract red forms. I like it, but I definitely wouldn't paint it that way now. I realize that there's a certain warmth and appeal with a more realistic image, but I'm now on a different course.
I love the pattern in this and can see how this piece relates directly to some of your recent ruglets.
ReplyDeleteright on - it's about form, and grass depicted as grass always reads as grass, not form. i think 'black belts' is a beautiful painting and very satisfying in its simplicity and austerity and also in its reality: no obligatory detail - this means that the painting doesn't give me things I already know.
ReplyDeleteMona, it's good to know that you see a relationship between this painting and my textiles. I feel like the same person doing them, but I sometimes wonder if the two mediums seem too far apart.
ReplyDeleterappel, thanks for the confirmation, and I'm really glad you like this painting. I'll be working on a new painting that needs some texture, but I will try always to keep the form paramount.
Ditto on both comments. I also see strong connections b/w different media and the abstract green works much more effectively than literal turf grass. Have you read Michael Pollan's SECOND NATURE and the wonderful section on the male American's relationship to turf?
ReplyDeletethanks, Julie. I did read "Second Nature" years ago and loved it. I especially remember the grass chapter and the one on roses. I'm a fan of his books.
ReplyDeleteI like this direction your work is going, Altoon. Have you written about the relationship between form and color? I would b interested in reading that.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Erik. No, I haven't written about that particular relationship because it's not something I think about as separate from the process of making a convincing image. But if it ever comes up in my thinking, I'll be sure to discuss it.
ReplyDeleteIf I was describing your work I would say that you paint abstractions of machinery. And yet, looking at these two paintings, the red one is very realistic. Tone, texture and the grass, of course. If you had left the strip of grass in the first painting as a grass reference, it would have really thrown it all off. I am amazed at how different these two pictures feel and read, for all their similarities. My preference is for the new direction.
ReplyDeleteYour comment makes me happy, Linda, in seconding my choices about the grass and about the direction of my work. It's very interesting to me that the two paintings seem so different to you; when I look at them again, I think that even the light in the work is more abstract than it used to be, less specific of a place and time.
ReplyDeleteNot painting the grass realistically in the second one makes the focus on the belts. It is the shadowns that make the second one feel like you could touch the belts. They are very realistic.
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