Do you ever wish for a Do-over?

This is the first time I painted over one of my old canvases. Typically, it's very tough for me to let go of even my most disliked pieces, but I wanted this challenge of working on top of something already formed. I thought it would be so wonderful to already have a textured work from the get go, so that I wouldn't have to spend the time establishing texture from the ground up. How fundamentally wrong was I!

All the lines and grooves are formed in all the wrong places for this current piece, and every new layer is going against the grain of what's already established. It's like you're trying to change someone whose personality has been formed long ago.

At some point, however, you realize that old scars won't go away. All you can do is simply work with them, bring a new light to them, a brighter life. Yes, it is typically escapism that I'm after in my work, but it doesn't have to erase all notions of my reality. It can bring me to a new place by building on top of what's there.

 It comes out as an antiqued Instagram photo, with patches of seemingly forgotten white space open for interpretation. Some layers are scratched off to the very core of my original marks, with a new mask seemingly hiding all wounds. However, the more you add to an existing patch of texture, the more sophisticated it becomes...

Painting is my process of empowerment

A great article in the Free Daily Press has just been published with my thoughts on what painting means to me, and what it means for me to be empowered. I never gave it much thought before I was given an opportunity to participate in this one of a kind outdoor public exhibit in Newton at Chestnut Hill Square. Please do go see it before it closes on October 17th. Here're some sneak peek photos from the opening event. Photos courtesy of Mark Wilson Images.

 

Traps

This painting has been a torture. It was attempting to come to life amidst declines from juried shows and galleries. I was in a particularly foul mood for weeks. Yet, it has been moving along despite it all and in a very strange way. I've been noticing that the drips don't just come down, (laws of physics and all), - they follow certain ridges and roads that I had left previously. Every time I would come back to paint, I'd be afraid that things would progress too fast. Yet, my barriers created intriguing little turns and twists for paint to follow.

At first, those closed gates seemed to play along with my depressive tune - 'you can't jump over your head', 'you can't go beyond your pre-set limitations' - little mean voice inside my head kept saying...

And then I returned one last time and suddenly thought - 'But wait, I am the one who creates these closed gates. It's completely up to me to open some and close others. It's my choice to direct the flow slightly. I set my own traps.

Just like in life, I can always walk into those pre-designed lived-in scenarios. Or, I can make a conscious decision to behave differently - not sacrifice myself, my time, my energy, but create more meaningful satisfying relationships.

It was truly brought home when I would stand as usual with one arm melting the paint, and the other holding a palette knife, ready to place another automatic mark in another section of the painting. But something inside of me kept saying time and again - 'no, put down the knife, use this arm to consciously turn the canvas and create new paths'...and I did.

Melting away...all masks

As much as I try, I can't get away from reality. I can't reach within and call forth images sitting deep in some innermost layer.

So my new answer to all this representation is melt the reality...melt it away like the Wicked Witch of the West, remove all those built up textures, all these layers of masks.

The process is really difficult on me as it requires so much patience. It's the antidote to my fierce piercings with a palette knife.

What it does is slowly bring out all these unexpected nuances in color relationships, plays of textures that are so different from what I typically employ. Drips fall like tiny tears, so difficult to extract, always from unpredictable little caves, opening newer hideaway places, shifting priorities. It's like reliving a dream, peeling its meaning bit by bit, the unwilling truths. Bubbles of bile all of a sudden explode into fireworks of new answers. If all masks could shed like this, leaving room for brutal honesty with self and with the world.
This is a work in progress...the tricky thing is knowing where to stop...The media is oil paint and wax, which is then melted down with a heat lamp.

Simple matter of palette observation

My work is always about color but it seems I always arrive at it accidentally. Somehow one hue ends up next to another and forms a perfect relationship. I'm not able to mindfully replicate it. It just sort of happens every time. However, all these trials end up on a palette and it can be part of practice to simply remember what works well with what, based on my own preferences of course, as it's all subjective.

We discussed with my mentor how this attempt to arrive at a formula that ws orks for the art world doesn't quite work. One's palette is truly a phenomenon of the left side of the brain, and simply pours out subconsciously. I still think it's doable, however, without it turning into automation.

Just say to yourself, pale green and subtle pink is a pair, and so is violet and lemon yellow, cadmium red looks stunning next to sage green...Or am I just now naming opposites on a color wheel, impressionist style?

Well, I tried to take these relationships to heart with this latest piece, and I think it sort of works, no?

I was also thinking that I always hated the color green, as it's so blah, and difficult to capture in all its various hues. But when I look at my work, it seems the parts I enjoy the most are the subtle relationships of various greens. So the idea for the summer is to limit myself and simply create a green painting...

Doesn't everyone love ice cream?

That's the consistency of oil paint when it's mixed with wax and it almost feels like you can taste the different flavors: sweet red or tart green or chocolate brown. It just feels so malleable and soft when the hard edge of a palette knife brings it all together.

Now the palette knife - its main quality is scraping, having new color intrude on the old but not kill it, rather let it peak out in just the right proportions. That's why everyone is so into Gerhard Richter's work with scratched out surfaces. It marries the old and the new in unexpected combinations  - the flavors of ice cream never before attempted together.

You see the function of color best in Monet, Rothko, Pollock, Kandinsky. De Kooning I think was a total anti-colorist just as Picasso before him. Vuillard and Bonnard, Matisse - the fauves are seeing color in a completely separate light.

Balance

If you pay attention to spreading one color in a balanced way around the canvas, you don't run the risk of getting stuck in the details - a true pitfall. You're also then a lot more cognizant of the type of stroke you're making - for me it's the short horizontal slab with a palette knife that brings the most satisfaction, especially when there's sufficient color that your edge can examine their relationships. Another element that adds to the sameness of texture is s the tool you use, that is staying with same palette knife or brush if repetition is desired, or switching it to a thin outline with a tiny yet bold brush line. I'm certainly a descendant of Russian painters (Kandinsky, Chagall, Rothko), string  the bold black outline is very important to me after all, especially when it's a jagged dancing stroke that seems to resemble a sting. The appearance of this pulsating string seems to be more importance than simply the color relationships. Pay close attention to the palette you're mixing on for pleasing color combinations - this might be the best guide for your painting's progress if nothing else. And know when you get tired in order to stop before it's too late.

Volume

I set out to reach a point between figuration and abstraction where just enough is being said, but not quite so much to ellicit concrete references. I substituted a brush for a more expressive palette knife. I added texture with the impasto technique. I stopped taking photographs of the landscapes I paint in order to limit my desire to perfect a scene. And yet, with the passing of time it appears that my pieces are only getting more dense and representational. It bothers me that then I want to achieve perfect perspective, or ouline something just enough to be able to feel its mass. These wishes are too literal. They shouldn't be relevant in an abstract work. How easy it must be to just choose a few lines and take off without prior knowledge of proper means of representation. It is just so difficult to convince yourself to stay general, to break the piece simply into planes, or fields of color. It takes tremendous leaps of faith to trust yourself in a completion of a color relationship, in the placement of a bold line. Perhaps this is where the mastery is - to depart from a mere representation to a complicated and impactful world within. Perhaps this search for a place to call home would end where no known references reside. Till then, the search continues...

Moods

A body of work is starting to come together and though I sense similarities in a palette and obviously the theme of landscape, each one of these pieces is incredibly different in terms of its mood. It's truly remarkable how my current state of being is influencing the piece. These past few months have been stressful and panicky with a new baby. As a result, my latest painting, 'Lilac Day', is simply making me nervous. The lines are anxiously spreading in all kinds of directions, the contrasts in colors are highly overt. There's true tension here, especially in comparison to the previous piece, 'Mount Fuji'. Now could it be as simple as direction of a line and a balanced out composition? Or is this a result of a transfer to a much more expressive palette knife paint application and addition of wax medium to create texture? The only way to find out is to mix the two: use up the little remaining wax with a palette knife and then move back to painting with a brush. Would this result in a piece with an interesting mix of moods or would it simply become muddy and confusing? We shall see.

Brushstrokes

Looking at my 4 year old the other day carefully placing identical blobs of color onto a piece of paper, (due to his under developed fine motor skills of course), I began to wonder whether this is the right way to go in order to achieve balance in a painting. That is should I carefully continue with a chosen direction and method of applying a stroke, a la Van Gogh or the Pointillists, as opposed to acting on impulse and taking cues from hand movements? If you simply follow your instincts, then the piece shows intensity but also chaos and instability. If all brushstrokes flow simultaneously, then there's serenity and the eye is calmer when it moves around the work. Question is what do you want to achieve, and is this result what you'd be happy with for the moment, or is it good enough to live with for a lifetime?

Texture

So I've decided to revisit texture via a combination of oil and wax. It is incredible how different the painting process feels with this quick change of course. The paint all of a sudden has mass and feels like a true substance with lots of volume. The colors blend in but keep their original intensity and peek through without layering. Most importantly, the expressive nature of the painting becomes that much more immediate. A palette knife allows the inner urge to spill out emotions to come through so much more readily than a paint brush. It feels as if once you know that paint cannot be smoothed out, you relax and simly let it breathe. The canvas underneath has its say as well as it doesn't need to be covered up but rather acts as another element in a carved out piece. It's truly a marriage made in heaven me painting this way. I feel that it will very soon lead to the long awaited abstract effect that I've been seeking.