still life with refugees 2 /  by Philip Tarlow

still life with refugees 2 42x42” oil on linen

2:26 PM: today i went back into still life with refugees 2, which has been on my east studio wall for weeks, asking for my attention. it’s still in preocess, but i’m taking it slow and avoiding large areas of strong color. so you have to look carefully to find the little gems. the skateboarding girl is a new addition; she has appeared in previous paintings, with her green dress and white petticoat flying up. as well, tree trunks and branches from one of my creek photos have appeared, and will be worked on more tomorrow.

still life with refugees /  by Philip Tarlow

still life with refugees, 42x42” oil & collage on linen, as it looked moments ago

2:40 PM: yesterday i went down a rabbit hole and couldn’t get out. so this morning i whited over it, scraped a bit and then painted into the richness that remained.

the only thing i didn’t touch was the guy doing a handstand, who was originally part of the 2020 post Olympics celebration ceremony. but now he’s at the bottom of the composition. to his right, a figure with a red jump rope from the same event, and above him, the now familiar striding plaid shirted figure, the main character in the tv series the good doctor.

the distressed, you might say, composition, with it’s scraped over and blotted areas, gives us enough to comprehend and leaves enough for us to fill in the blanks.

AI would not approve, and would immediately make everthing clearer and sharper, i imagine. it cannot, by it’s very nature, comprehend painterly. but once it gets wind of this, i’m sure it will.

still life with refugees /  by Philip Tarlow

still life with refugees, 42x42”, oil & collage on linen.

3:05 PM: i wasn’t happy with the previous state of still life with refugees; it was way too busy. so today, i made it even busier! here it is as it looked at the end of my painting day. the script you see was inspired by a photo i saw of the oldest known scripts.

before flipping it upside down

pine peak continued / still life with refugees /  by Philip Tarlow

12:41 PM: pine peak, 42x42” oil & collage on linen as it looked following this mornings session

12:29 PM: as usual, when i took my first glance at pine peak upon entering my studio this morning, it seemed too busy and too much of an attempt at a realist interpretation of my photo collage of mikela holding a mirror while adjusting her hair.

so when i took it off the wall, my fist instinct was GREY. warm grey. and in that first spurt of energy, i mixed the grey in a plastic container, added some solvent along with my favorite medium neo megilp, and brushed it on, covering much of what i did yesterday. i did leave some small areas, making a new and much more painterly composition. yellow, red and green stripes appeared on 3 of the edges, as well as a green triangle and rectangle of color.

what i learned today was to go with that first burst of energy and then leave it alone. trust it.

still life with refugees, 42x42” as it looked after yesterdays rubbing & scraping

1:43 PM: i’ve been looking on and off at still life with refugees and i’m feeling it may actually be resolved as is, post rubbing and scraping. i’ll keep it up on the wall and see how i feel over the coming days. i may stretch it, now that the new stretcher bars have been delivered, and see ho wit looks stretched.

still life with refugees & pine peak rubbed / MT/PT early photo /  by Philip Tarlow

pine peak, 42x42” oil on linen, as she looked after starting to paint into her this afternoon

3:16 PM: after rubbing and scraping pine peak this morning, i began working back into it. i referred to an old photo of mikela with a mirror, which i’ve used before in a painting. it’s actually a photo collage, which i did a lot before computers came on the scene. i especially love, as i’ve shared before, when the underlying painting peaks through.

pine peak after rubbing & scraping this morning

11:55 AM: just now i did the same thin with pine peak as i did earlier with still life with refugees; i rubbed & scraped it, so that it looks like this.

and now i’ll start working back into them, going back & forth between the two.

11:03 AM: i scraped and rubbed still life with refugees just now, then flipped it upside down, and here’s it’s current state.

10:43 AM: i discovered this late ‘80’s polaroid shot of mikela & i in my storage area yesterday. it was probably shot a few years after we met in mykonos in 1986.

mikela and i a few years after we first met in 1986

pine peak II, day 1 /  by Philip Tarlow

pine peak II, 42x42” oil on linen on day 1

3:13 PM: i decided to let pine peak I sit for a few days, to determine if i want to do more since it felt resolved at the end of the day yeasterday.

so i started a new one, pine peak II, with the same dimensions: 42x42”. it started out with a number of drawings in pencil, some of which can still be seen. then the process took over , until that moment when i could do no more and had to stop for the day.

the figure on the right was inspired by an old photo i discovered this morning in a box sitting in my upstairs storage area. it’s of a girl who looks to be about 14, but it was too long ago and i have no idea who she is. below her to the left is the by now familiar striding figure in the plaid shirt, originally inspired by a photo i found online of the main character in the tv serial the good doctor.

a new kind of composition has been emerging, which i would describe as more painterly as well as coloristically bolder.

ar work today on pine peak II

DETAIL of pine peak II

"still life with refugees" /  by Philip Tarlow

still life with refugees, 42x42” as it looked just now, after adding the green bits in the center & lower right.

3:25 PM: i introduced a bit of green, which i knew was needed; i just didn’t have the gut feeling of where in the composition it needed to be, and i din’t want to force it. when i start painting earlyier in the day, i don’t think at all about what i’m going to do, but when it gets to be 3, not so much. it’s just a small amount of green, which however makes a big difference to the harmony of the composition.

BELOW: before (left) and afer adding the green; see what i mean?

still life with refugees, 42x42” oil & collage on linen, as it looked following todays session.

2:14 PM: the central portion of the composiiton was screwing up the works. using mostly warm greys and blues, i collaged over and then painted into that area, allowing ones eye to move more freely over the composition, which can still be considered a figurative abstraction. i pointed out the figures yesterday, and they remain the same, although i did put shoes on the guy doing a handstand, as well as giving a bit more definition to his hands.

"words & Worlds," continued /  by Philip Tarlow

still life with refugees 42x42” oil & collage on linen, as it looked following todays modifications

1:14 PM: once i made the changes to words & worlds yesterday, i felt ready to return to still life with refugees.

rather than enveloping the forms in blue, i used 3 colors: a warm grey, orange and blue, but a different blue than yesterday.

the circular form on the upperleft is a rice filled bowl and derives from a screenshot i made of a photo shot from above, of palestinean refugees cooking dinner in a makeshift setting, using a wood burning fire.

in addition to enlivening the entire painting, the bright colors i introduced today eliminate the unnecessarily complicated elements in the composition and allow the more compelling forms, such as the figure on the right doing a handstand and the guitar player on the upper left, to pop. the guitar player, by the way, is form a tv screenshot i took of the elton john/bernie taupin concert.

at work earlier today

bluing words & worlds / workmen in plaka, 1978 /  by Philip Tarlow

words & worlds” 42x42” as it looked at 2pm today

BELOW: words and worlds before and after today’s bluing”

bluing words & worlds a little earlier today

1:19 PM: after going through many stages, words & worlds is now being what i call blued. here i’m still engaged in it.

2:38 PM: i had a great time brushing on that blue earlier today. my sense of composition as well as my sense of pure fun guided my brush as i painted over passages in the painting that, as i gazed at it this morning, were confusing and simply didn’t work. one might say that what i just did was a radical move. and it was.

what has shown up now are shapes floating in a blue background….or is it a foreground? some of the shapes are obviously identifiable, such as the woman on the right, the striding, plaid shirted figure beside her and of course the bird. others are biomorphic, suggestive shapes., leaving the interpretation to the observer.

personally, that feature in a painting that’s well painted is all important. it’s one of the chief reasons why i so love gorky who, along with mata and others of that period, was able to create “ a palpable discrepancy between artifact and affect, appearance and intent, the manifest identity of objectand the elusive identity of the author” (robert storr writing in “Archille Gorky, a Retrospective” 2010.

is this a breakthrough, a sign of things to come or a one-off?

the plow and the song II, gorky, 1946, 52 1/4 x 61 1/2”

gorky dancing an armenian dance at a wedding in 1944

workmen in plaka, 12”/31cm. x 24”/61cm. egg tempera on board, 1978

11:46 AM: in the ‘70’s, my studio was on the edge of the Plaka neighborhood, directly facing the ancient Tower of the Winds. half a block to my right was a building under renovation. the workmen interested me as subjects for painting, so i asked if any of them might be interested in posing. naturally, the most innocent ones responded, and that was the start of a series that would come to define my years in Greece.

most are in private and museum collections, but fortunately i had the good sense to hold on the this one, which is painted in egg tempera on board, 12”/31cm. x 24”/61cm.

learn more about my years in Greece by clicking on the GREECE link on the upper right of this page, or simply go to: https://www.philiptarlow.com/art-created-in-greece