(Written March 15)
Dear friends of art (and of Owen);
It’s been some time since I sent off a “what’s on the easels” note and I am slightly reluctant to do this except that
- One of you actually asked me what was up!
- I’m in the hospital with my elderly father, who is undergoing some tests, and there’s not much else to do but worry
My reluctance is that of the three pieces I have here, only one, the truly abstract, is done, and that came out right quick. It’s a little oil stick on duralar plastic, I’m quite happy with it, and why? Because sometimes simplicity, wordless, is all one wants, or needs.
Some time ago I wrote a piece that I titled “When is a painting finished,” where I opined that even if the painter think it so, a painting has a life far after its life in the studio – it changes in its viewers hearts and mind, as they see it multiple times. These next two paintings – whose impetus came from a few words from Jeff Bengtson – curator at Isles – are nearly done, nearly done… that is, they’ve nearly exhausted me. There’s a lot going on. A few words:
- Each is in acrylic, 40 x 60
- Each takes as a point of departure, a work by a great artist of the Western Canon: Mantegna for one, Rubens for another
- I have neither the skill, nor the time, nor the desire, to copy slavishly either the Judgement of Paris, nor the Camera degli Sposi. But I wanted the pieces as a point of departure, I realized that I was interested in ironizing them.
With animals (I doubt that Mantegna ever saw a giraffe at the court of Mantua)
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- With abstraction