Saturday, January 10, 2009

Selected Painting(s) of the Day - A Duo

I have two features running in the blog now - Selected Painting of the Day and Inspirations (artists). Rather than do each feature consecutively, I'm going to mix it up a little.

So today I have selected two paintings that I made just recently. These are the two that inspired the threesome I posted last week in the trifecta and a shot of them standing on the floor has already appeared. They are the two largest pieces I have painted to date in encaustic and I enjoyed working at this scale. I named them Lewis and Clark because they were exploring new territory. (I know - kinda dumb. When I told a friend their names, she said that the third piece in the series should be called Sacagawea. What a smart-ass! But coming up with names can be the worst part of making paintings and I don't like numbering - unlike Richard Diebenkorn.)

This is Lewis - the first one. It's a triptych, 66" x 24" x 1.5" on panels. The two end panels with the stripes are not joined but hung close to the central panel. (Please pardon my photographic inexpertise which scrunches the bottom left.) There are various things embedded in the wax such as lace, pieces of plants, felt circles, newspaper, jersey circles, etc. Some areas of the wax are carved or scraped and some worked into with oilstick. There are rough and smooth surfaces.


And this is Clark. It's a diptych, the same overall size as Lewis although this image makes it look bigger. The panel from the left through the orange rectangle is one piece (52"x24") and the second panel (24"x24") goes from the skinny two-toned blue stripe through the right side.

I think these pieces are something new for me. They have the somewhat softened geometric structure that I like, but their structure is not the first thing that you notice about them. The color is varied, a bit different, and the patterning plays with two and three dimensions. I consider them a successful exploration that referenced past work but broke new ground for me. Onward!

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