"identity and abstraction inform, rather than oppose, each other" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:10 PM: an overcast sky with a persistant light rain made it hard to work today, as i depend solely on natural light to paint. nonetheless, i did a fair amount of work on gaze 34. identity and abstraction do indeed inform one another, as this imagery, inspired by a detail of titian's venus of urbino with mirror, carves out and defines it's space in the square 38x38" format. venus and cupid constitute the identity, which is abstracted in a way only possible by an artist; me,  who has been a student of the abstract movements in art for decades.

 

 

so taken were they with titian's venus, that several later artists, including rubens and van dyck made copies.

tomorrow we should have bright sun, and i anticipate being able to take it to the next level.

 

gaze 34 at the end of my painting day yesterday

 

 

 

 

 

8:50 AM: what is the meaning of this quote from a recent new yorker article on a hurvin anderson exhibition, and how does it relate to what i'm about to do in the studio today?

in about an hour, we'll find out, as i continue working on gaze 34. until then, BELOW are the stages thus far, going back to it's inception in november, 2016. the most recent: upper left; the original image: lower left.

gaze 34 shifts images /  by Philip Tarlow

2:15 PM: a scrumble this morning was followed by the early stages of a new imagery. i'm stopping here for the day, mostly because i can only work up to the point of pain from my hernia, which will be repaired within a month. for now, as soon as it gives me signs that i need to lie down, i declare that the end of my painting day. for those of you who haven't been following my posts, a scrumble is a word i made up to describe the process i do periodically, of passing over the entire surface with a light wash of color, which today was pinkish, and then scraping into it with a large spatula, creating unexpected textures and dragging some of the still wet color into sexy streaks. today, this process was followed by my bubble wrap invention, where the wrap is saturated with color & then pressed onto the surface, creating more texture and patterning.

tomorrow may be a pivotal day for gaze 34, when, if i stick with this imagery, the full emotional and painterly impact of the cherub presenting her with a fistful of flowers matures into a moment we can all relate to.

on the left, you see me examining the surface just prior to starting my scrumble.

the integration of poetry, painting & calligraphy /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of fisherman. the poem reads: "red leaves west of the village reflect evening rays/ yellow reeds on a sandy bank cast early moon shadows/lightly stirring his oar/thinking of returning gome/he puts aside his fishing pole, and will catch no more"

1:28 PM: on this, our first day back from my eye adventure in denver, i looked to picasso's 1940 drawings and to wu zhen (1280-1354 AD) for courage & inspiration. wu zhen was a recluse, never achieving success or fame in his lifetime. after his death, he became known as one of the Four Great Masters of the late yuan dynasty. his work is characterized by informality and spontaneity. here's an example; a detail of a work titled simply fisherman, ca. 1350.

after learning that, in addition to a cataract in my right eye, i also have glaucoma in that eye, and that i'm going to have surgery addressing both issues, i was shaken. this obviously is a big deal for an artist.

so i was delighted and lifted that i oculd enter my studio the very next day with fresh energy and begin working again on gaze 34. i tracked todays process more closely than usual, resulting in the series of photos you see below, chronologically arranged. notice that , in the final image, i'm using a branch i found this past fall on the trail to dig and scratch into the still wet paint.

the painting will likely transform tomorrow, but i find it interesting that the detail emerging from todays calligraphic play is her eye. 

i feel a strong affinity with these ancient chinese artists and their capacity to seamlessly integrate poetry, painting and calligraphy in a way that has not been accomplished before or since their flowering.

more work on gaze 34 revisions /  by Philip Tarlow

2:03 PM: i'll be taking a 2 day break from my studio starting tomorrow, and i wanted to get gaze 34 to a good place. when something like that succeeds, everything else in the series seems like it needs more work. today is such a day. 

on the one hand, as i wrote yesterday, i'm feeling the need to switch to oils, and to take a new direction. on the other, i think these final paintings in my gaze series, informed as they are by all 25 or so that came before, have the potential to be the most developed. 

today i did extensive work both on the face itself and on the area surrounding it. she tells the story of her 1,700 year journey with her eyes, her mouth. she faced many of the same issues women have to deal with today. on a purely painterly level, the surface is informed by my love for the history of art, fed by my visits to many of the great museums of the world.

ABOVE:  3 STAGES OF GAZE 34

a new series brewing? /  by Philip Tarlow

3:04 PM: so i got back to work on gaze 34, which i was revising when we left for edwards last week. 

 

 

 

 

 

BELOW: gaze 34. ;eft to right:  on Nov. 1st,2016,  Jan. 2 and a few minutes ago.

i had been critical of the grey area surrounding the face in the nov. 1st iteration. so i brought it back to the studio. the day before leaving for edwards, i brought it to the state you see above, middle. while i like what happened with the areas on either side of her face, i wasn't happy with the face itself. today, her face re-gained it's richness and fullness. at the same time, it integrated with the background in a way that allows the eye to freely wander over the painterly surface. areas of background can be appreciated in and of themselves, as can be seen in the details below. the whole surface sings when compared with the nov. 1st version, where the grey surrounding her face creates a more traditional separation between background and foreground.

deKooning influence: somewhere in my visual memory, deKooning looms large, especially his woman series. below right, a deKooning detail.

 

10:28 am: after returning from our latest edwards trip, i began having a strong feeling that something new is brewing. i've been feeling the urge to paint in oils again. i miss it. the sfumato; the juiciness; the subtleties it makes possible....

so. 

studio interior this morning, with 2 of the incomplete gaze series on the wall.

j have a few unfinished gaze paintings to complete. as you know they are in acrylic & collage on cotton canvas. once that's complete, i anticipate stretching a few 32x32" pieces of primed linen i have and taking the plunge. i'm trying not to get ahead of myself, and thus remaining, as far as possible, neutral and unattached to what exactly the new work will look like.

what happened to tarlow? /  by Philip Tarlow

10:22 AM: in about an hour, we leave for the vilar center in beaver creek; about 1/2 hour in these snowy conditions. this trip is different from previous ones to edwards, because we're not working with the kids at the middle school. it's all about TEDX VAIL, produced by our friend kat, with whom we're staying. one of the speakers, dominique and her assistant danny are also guests here at kat's beautiful home. this is danny putting on her makeup this morning, a photo which may well become a painting:

back to my gaze series; a re-work of gaze 34 today /  by Philip Tarlow

7:31 PM: i think i'll be doing more work on this one tomorrow.

2:29 PM: after spending a couple of weeks on the VAIL TEDX speaker portraits, i'm now back to my gaze series. after living with gaze 34 for a few months, i felt it needed work. the area surrounding her face didn't work and seemed more like filler than an integral part of the picture plane. it now has more of a mysterious feel, and the eye has more freedom to roam. in this series, i am always in pursuit of that magical balance between the specificity of the gaze and the purely painterly qualities of the surface.

below: on the left, gaze 34 as it looked before my intervention and on the right, as it looked a few minutes ago, after working on it all morning, with a short break to skype with my grandkids philip & manio who are at their grandmother's house in naoussa, northern greece, with their mom.

THE 16 tedx vail speaker portraits i completed yesterday /  by Philip Tarlow

10:42 AM: good morning & a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my visitors/friends! below you see the 16 completed VAIL TEDX speaker portraits. they've been sent to the organizer of the even, kat, and will be reproduced in large format and given as gifts to the speakers, as well as being posted on the TEDX site. 

now what?

the last of the 16 vail tedx speaker portraits / looking back /  by Philip Tarlow

12:34 PM: as i was adjusting the portraits to send for publication, i ran across this painting, which was part of my 2014 ANO KATO series. 16x16" oil on linen. it was based on a photo taken in MOMA.

 

 

 

 

 

7:16 PM: this is the last portrait of the 16 VAIL TEDX speakers: elizabeth howe. it took a while to locate the right photograph. eventually, i found a clip in a video of her being interviewed.  

unexpectedly, i felt a strong rush of emotions as i completed this cycle of 16 portraits. i think you may be able to tell by your own emotional response to my portrait of elizabeth, who is in charge of the ski lifts at vail ski resort.

we'll see what happens today in the studio, now that i'm free to move on to other things.

portrait # 14 of 16: bethany Halbrecht & 15, of britten /  by Philip Tarlow

3:11 PM: and here is the drawing of britten. as with bethany, i had to do a deep search to find the right image, where she doesn't have that happy, smiley look. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1:53 PM: the completed drawing of bethany halbrecht. i'm now moving on to the next to last portrait, of the artist brittany. the toughest candidates for portraits are people who want to make sure they are always smiling or looking happy in their photos. so you search and search for a moment of truth, when they have for an instant let go of that need to look bright and sparkly. i had to do lots of work to find that moment for bethany as well as the next portrait of britten.

this makes me have a deeper appreciation for the series of portraits and full figure paintings i made in the '70's of greek construction workers. with them, the problem i just spoke of did not exist whatsoever. and they were so princely and elegant, so present in their utter simplicity that i grew accustomed to it; considered it the norm.

 

 

 

 

 

12:21 PM: i had a bit of a struggle finding the right image for bethany. she smiles a lot, which is fine, but not for a portrait. i started drawing one, but it just wasn't right. so i continued to comb the internet, looking for videos, where i can start & stop until i find the right expression that tells me "this IS bethany!" since we haven't met, i need to get a sense of her, and this video, which is really about thailand, gave me a brief glimpse of her in the intro. that was enough. in a moment between smiles, i saw her as i know she must be in real life. here's an early stage. work continues, and i'll post updates as they occur.