Mall, Copic Markers on Paper, 9" by 12", 2004
Notes on Figurative Work
As a student, I wrote a paper on the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault. At the time, I chose a book reproduction to study. Looking at the color print, I began to write down my ideas. Of course, the image itself is a powerful one. Géricault depicts the fate of survivors struggling for life on the raft of a wrecked ship after having been abandoned at sea by an uncaring and incompetent captain. Some of the men on the raft have already succumbed to days at sea and are depicted as either dejected, dying, or deteriorating. In short, this is not a pretty scene. The uplifting aspect of this painting lies in the animation expressed by a few men who have suddenly sighted the sail of a ship on the horizon. Now the scene is filled with the hope of rescue which helps lift the men and the viewer up and out of a dismal scene of desperation.
Géricault's painting epitomizes an eternal human theme in the arts which cannot be exhausted over time: man's fundamental struggle for survival. The situations may change their shape over time. But man's will to overcome unending new perils, natural and man-made, will always remain. When the odds are stacked against our winning, it's then that indomitable strength and courage are summoned forth from within us to fight back. We win or lose, whichever the case may be.
I reflect on my own life's circumstances and find, like everyone else, I've also had moments when I was challenged to act to avoid potentially undesirable situations. Sometimes I came out with simple scuffs and bruises which quickly healed and were soon forgotten. Then there were times I'll always remember, times I nearly didn't get back up. It's these moments in our lives when we feel ourselves threatened which remain to remind us, to caution us. Moments like these bring us closer to "feeling" on a deeper level than in our accustomed day to day experiences. I love to listen to and sing the songs of Gabriel Fauré. I once sang one of his songs for a group of family and friends. The song is about two persons parting and is called Adieu. An aunt was there listening. When I ended the song, she sighed, "Oh, what a sad song!" I could think of nothing to say. My friend and teacher, Sam Amato, came to my rescue with, "Yes, but there's great beauty in sadness". Sam's words struck as deeply as Fauré's melody and words sounded a deeper truth within us. Sadness is an emotion which, yes, is sad. Sad moments remind that life is not a streaming line of happy smileys. Sadness can bring tears followed by lingering pain. When it passes, it brings us a sense of acceptance and relief. It is the action which clears the air for our lives to resume unclouded, if only for a while.
As I was searching the web for images of war casualties, I was sickened watching my monitor fill with pictures of unimaginable horror. These photos almost seemed unreal because they were not the kind of jounalistic war photos I was accustomed to seeing on mainstream media. However, my gratitude to unimbedded photographers for these online images outweighed my sickness at heart. Independent war journalists like Robert Fisk have become heroic figures for me. Fisk and others like him present a factual basis for understanding what really occurs hour by hour and day by day in a war zone. Yes, factual truth can be unpleasant, even cause us pain. But let's remind ourselves, those blown off limbs could be ours. Insert a sad smiley here.
I'd like to speak a little about my process of picture making. First, the photograph has always been a powerful source tool for my work. As a child, I poured over pictures in books. They were my windows into the world. The reproduction of Géricault's Raft opened a window for me as a student. Years later, when I saw the painting itself in the Louvre Museum, my appreciation was not as great as I had expected it to be. Yes, the painting breathed more life than the reproduction I had looked at earlier . But, the reproduction was there for me first. The confrontation with the original served to reactivate and reinforce my first experience with Géricault's disarming vision.
When I work from a photo source, I don't try to literally reproduce the photo as a photorealist artist might. Rather, I gather what information I can. The photo may offer certain interesting aspects of lighting or composition which I find useful and implement into my design. A blowup can also be helpful for studying more detailed information. Sometimes I like to work from a black and white photo and then make my own color choices in the painting. I've also scanned photos into the computer and then altered them in Painter or Photoshop. Printing out this hybrid gives a changed color sense which I sometimes find useful in adjusting my palette colors.
While photos can be good source tools for artists, nothing can replace looking and studying subjects from life. Models and studio props are essentials in my toolbox. Working directly from a subject, I can discover details which the surface of a photograph seldom supplies. Direct observation helps me see how light moves around forms and describes them in space. In life nothing is static: light may change or forms may move. I find it interesting to keep up with these changes as they add dynamic vitality to the working process. Thus the painting becomes a composite of separate moments over time rather than the frozen instant of the photograph.
Imagination is another very important element in my working process. There are times when I just close my eyes to all the above and let myself dream. The direct contact of pencil on paper or brush on canvas is often an "open sesame" to synchronizing the download process of ideas from your imagination to the surface in front of you. You feverishly scratch out lines trying to keep up with an overflow of ideas. Seeds for developing future works are often uncovered during this mode of working. Here I dig down deeper within to harvest visual forms.
Cumulatively, it is the exchange between these three approaches which keeps the life's blood of my work flowing. Each amplifies the other: imagination, studio involvement, and photos.
Some of the paintings in this gallery are inspired by certain recent ongoing global situations which disturb me. Some persons may find my resulting work offensive. Others may find it darkly amusing. Either way, it is my wish that these images remind us of issues which seriously affect us all and which must be resolved with compassion and humanity graciously extended to all unfortunate, oppressed, and exploited people on this planet.
October 30, 2009