January 2, 2015

A New Painting: "Central Red"


Central Red, 2014; egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 in.


My last painting of 2014 is not especially festive; it's rather austere in fact, even with the red vertical and horizontal shapes, since grays predominate. What especially interested me in this image was the shallow spaces, the planes layered one atop the other; and the simple geometry of it. 


Central Red detail


I hope that there's a sense of air behind the reds, a space before we get to the dark gray surface, with its shadowed shapes. For me there's a world within light and shade, form and shape, which yearns toward something beyond its surface.


6 comments:

  1. Surprisingly struck by the slightly meandering white line on the vertical red. It feels playful against the otherwise austere elements. Happy New Year.

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    1. Thanks, Larry, happy new year to you too. That meandering line is a bit of light caught on the edge of a raised element. I am not a precise enough painter to have it absolutely straight.

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  2. A pleasant composition, the red vertical and horizontal parts appearing as if they are doing something important. There's the curious opening in the shadow at lower left that comes about from an opening in the horizontal red bar, I'd guess, a bit mysterious.The lighter gray of the part on the right pushes upward, all the parts of the painting producing a good feeling of working together. And, I too, like that meandering white line.

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    1. Thank yo9u James. I'm glad you noticed the strange opening of light. There was a doubling of the red horizontal not readily visible, which left an opening, but I decided it was too complex to draw, so it left the little mystery of that bit of light.

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  3. There is a bit of 23rd-psalmody in your last statement...
    "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow...".
    Meditation opens: a valley requires two mountains; shadow, light.

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