with gaze 34, 38x38" at about 2:30 pm
2:38 PM: we have a guestt coming this afternoon, and today is our day to walk the trail, so rather than go at 3pm, we decided to leave at 10 am. normally, this would have cut into my painting time significantly, but i knew that the energy of the trail would create a more productive work day, albeit a shorter one. and i was right.
i launched into setting out my colors and painting faster than usual, and had a very productive 2 hour session. gaze 34 is skating the edge of verisimilitude. by that i mean the degree to which it's true to the source: a 1st c. fayum portrait of a woman with a golden crown of leaves. by the edge, i mean that tendency i speak of so often to want to make what i'm painting look like whatever it is i'm looking at, as much as possible. usually, this is to the detriment of the picture plane. when that happens, i scrumble and paint over what i've done, using the traces of that under-painting to enrich the next layer. that process continues until the picture plane triumphs.
yesterday i spoke of the aesthetic of the worn and the torn, as a way of giving you a sense of where i'm at; the direction the gaze series seems to be taking. the worn & torn aesthetic is a phrase i made up to convey the extreme aesthetic pleasure i get from viewing time worn paintings, mosaics....even contemporary billboards. we saw one some years ago while waiting for the Metro in Paris, and it was simply magnificent, with layers of older billboard images peeking through the torn bits. you could have taken it and installed it in a museum as is.
while i am capable of making good "abstract" paintings, my forte has always been "realism." i put the two in quotes because, as i've said before, i don't really buy that distinction, which of course is very a convenient one for critics and art historians. but that's a longer conversation.
the gaze series paintings need, i believe to be shown together in the same space. i've been researching european galleries, because i feel that's where they would be most appreciated and understood. as soon as something pans out, you'll be the first to know.