Memento Mori

Memento Mori is Latin for "Remember you must die" or "Remembrance of death." It's occurrence in Western art is pervasive from far past to near present.

In this drawing the skull is in the distance with the closer hour glass rapidly exhausting its sand. And yet the drawing is close cropped, non-revealing of the future to come.

This drawing is a doodle-drawing made of repeated passes of doodles to create it. I like the juxtaposition of the casual process against the serious subject.

"Memento Mori" 2009, charcoal on paper, 17"x16.75"

Process Drawing

This drawing was made using only four colored pencils: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The colors blend visually to create the various colors and tones apparent in the drawing.

Also I drew it only using curly-q doodles, the kind we often absent mindedly make during idle time.

Here I am investigating how four color printing, known as CMYK, uses three colors and black to create realistic photos.

Click on the photo for a large image to better see how this drawing was made.


"Denise" 2009, Colored pencil on paper, 23x17,

Just For Fun

There are a lot of University of Georgia fans around here. This was a relatively quickly done painting of "Uga", the teams' mascot.

No heavy art theory here, just something for fun.

11/22/09 Update: Uga died unexpectedly on Nov 19th.



"Uga", 25" x 24", Acrylic on canvas

Synapse

"Synapse"
Encaustic on canvas
30" x 24"

Reclining Nude

Whole books have been dedicated to the reclining nude, so pervasive is its role in art history. Many contemporary artists continue to reinterpret this common subject.
Click on the image so you may view its surface. The figure was created by incising the wax.
"Reclining Nude" 18"x48" encaustic on panel

Dawn

I've been playing around again with what I've termed "anti-grid" paintings. In an attempt to speed-up the process, I used a smaller canvas, but same sized triangle as "Rose" (see earlier post). This leaves the face less defined and me somewhat ambivalent about this painting.

"Dawn", 30"x30", acrylic on canvas

Simon & Simon

For the last six months I have been unable to spend any quality time in my studio due to an abrupt change in my business. Things are settling down and thankfully I am able to return to the studio.

This diptych, completed just last week, is inspired by the work of NY artist, James Little. I sometimes copy the style of an artist I like, to better understand his/her process and motivations for making art. But more than that, it gives me a point of departure from which I discover my own take on a particular style that often no longer resembles the original work. For me, this can be among the most stimulating of art practices.

"Simon & Simon", 2009, 40"x39", encaustic on panel

Flow

I painted this encaustic on canvas painting while on a camping trip some time back. I hoped to strip away facial recognition leaving only a suggestion of melancholy.

Viewers' responses have been interesting. This painting is either really liked or really disliked. But either way, it always seems to garner attention.

Here's the dumb thing, though. I can't seem to do it again. I have attempted comparable paintings several times only to fail - miserably.

But try again I shall, since I am one of those who likes it.

"Flow", 48" x 36", encaustic on canvas

The Billiard Player

I enjoy taking traditional themes and interpreting them in a contemporary manner. The theme of the billiard player has been visited and revisited for over a century.

This 30x24 oil on canvas painting from 2008 is my take on the traditional theme.

Grand Merit Award!

Each year the Art Lovers League of Cedar Valley sponsors the Welcome Art Show. This is a juried show representing artists from around the southeast. I was honored to be selected to receive the "Grand Merit Award: Best in Show" this year for the painting "Rose" (featured in a post below).

I guess the monotony of painting all those little triangles paid off after all.

Pieta

Pieta (Italian for pity) is a recurring subject for classical and contemporary art forms. Originally the pieta represented the Virgin Mary cradling the dead Christ. Over time it's meaning has expanded to represent grief, sacrifice and parental and other expressions of love.

"I'll Stop the World", Oil on canvas, 30" x 40", 2008




"Pieta", Oil on canvas, 24" x 48", 2008

Security Blanket

This is the first of a series of paintings in a sort of op-art style that I hope to one day produce as a quilt - hence the name.

"Security Blanket I", 36"x36", oil on canvas

Blue and Gray

This painting hangs in my professional office. Of all the works that have hung there, this one has drawn more comments than any other. Why?
History paintings were at one time all the rage. Since the photographic process had not yet come along, painters were the visual recorders of history. But for the last 150 years photography has taken over that job.
This oil on canvas painting (24" x 48", 2008) is based on a photo made infamous during the war in Viet Nam. It is in a sense a history painting of a history photo of a historical event. The blue and gray colors recall America's own mid-nineteenth century civil war as well as the one erupting at home during the Viet Nam war.

Rose

I started to count the number of triangles in this painting. Then I decided it would take longer than it did to complete it. I estimate over 5000, though.
I use the triangles as an anti-grid. Although the image consists of individual units (triangles), they are irregular and individual, each triangle contributing its own important function to make the whole. This is in contrast to a gridded or pixelated image, in which all units are identical except for color and intensity. Can you place the metaphor?

"Untitled (Rose)", Acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48"

Breaking the Rules

Tina Steele Lindsey wrote in her blog not too long ago that she would at times "bend the rules" by using supports that she had been told would not work. Woo Hoo! You go girl! Give me an art rule and I am either going to figure how to break it successfully or confirm it just can't be done. Take this painting for example. It is oil and acrylic on canvas - only I painted the acrylic after the oil. It worked perfectly - the panes between the images are painted in acrylic and appear almost (but imperfectly) adhered on. Just what the doctor ordered.
"Attraction" 2006, 30"x40", acrylic and oil on canvas.

Ronnie

Ronnie was in the waiting room at my office whiling away the time (as we all do) when he happen to see this painting on the wall. He inquired of the receptionist whether Dr. Bell had "done that painting." She informed, yes, that it was someone Dr. Bell knew. Ronnie replied, " I know who it is. It's me!"
In fact many years earlier Ronnie had done some house painting for me during which time I made a photo of him. Several years passed, however, before I actually painted this. Happily he was pleased that I had "painted him" and I was pleased his likeness was so recognizable.
Ronnie's face has a lot of character which interested me as a potential subject for an art work (he's also quite an interesting guy). This has become a favorite of mine and now hangs permanently in my studio. Created in 2007, it is encaustic on canvas measuring 24 inches square. As always, click on the image for a larger view.

Artist's Block

I, like many artists, find myself in situations where I don't know what to paint - artist's block. But sometimes the work defines itself. This 48"x48" acrylic on canvas, I estimate, will be comprised of over 5000 colored triangles. So when I walk into my studio I know I what to do - paint triangles. Not always the most fun thing to do, but I am liking where this is going. I'll post the finished painting when done.

Wax Fruit

Interesting to me was that my grandmother always had bowls of wax fruit used as decoration. This painting is based on a bowl of real fruit, but is painted with wax.
Encaustic paintings are created with pigmented wax applied in layers. Top layers are fused to underlying layers with heat; usually a heat gun, propane torch or iron. Check out Joanne Mattera's blog. She is a quite well known encaustic painter.
This painting, "Wax Fruit (Nectarines)" is 30" x 40". Click on the image for an enlarged view.

Yum!

I really like encaustic paintings!
I really like pizza!

Sometimes painting is just plain fun!


Click on the image to enlarge.
("Pizza", 2007, encaustic on canvas, 30"x40")

Artist as Viewer

If you'll read down a couple of posts, you'll see that I use an infant as a metaphor for a work of art. Of course I was relating this to the experiences of a diverse viewership with an art piece. But that metaphor works another way for the artist. We are glad when a piece sells. But this oil on canvas painting of our local Methodist Church (2008, 24"x 20") sold before the paint was good and dry. And as such the photo I have of it is kind of blurry (my camera was on the blitz). Sometimes I like to experience a painting I've done for a while before I let it go. Maybe, after being the artist, I need to impart meaning to the painting as a viewer.

Good Ol' Barney

I rarely paint celebrities. Too often the focus becomes the subject of the painting rather than the painting. When I say the focus of a painting should be the painting, I don't necessarily mean technique, but in a sort of Clemente Greenberg way I mean its formal properties - you know, surface, support, paint, size, texture - all that sort of stuff. (Yea, I know, Greenberg would have hated this painting.)

Don Knotts was a master. For all his inanities, he was able to switch and pull off an emotional and melodramatic moment. John Candy could do this also. I, personally, have never seen Jim Carrey do it convincingly.

This oil on canvas is 20"x16" and painted in 2005.

Abstract vs Nonobjective Art II

David Hirschi makes moderately sized seemingly monochromatic paintings "without referents outside of paint, color and support." His paintings arguably meet the definition of nonobjective art. But, as a viewer, some of his blue paintings remind me of skies at certain times of the day and year - an abstraction of some reality. I, in effect, have made a nonobjective painting abstract, without even touching it! In this sense the idea of abstract vs nonobjective art becomes more than academic. A work of art is not complete until the viewer interacts with it. Since many viewers may interact with a work, a particular piece is always in process. Another way to look at it is when a work is finished by the artist, the work is as an infant. Over time the piece matures as a viewership responds to it.

Mark Grtojhan is well known for his colored pencil abstractions which he often subtitles "Butterfly". This 2006 encaustic on canvas (30"x24") is an homage to Grotjhan (my intent). So is this painting an abstraction of Grotjhan's work, an abstraction of butterflies or nonobjective? You decide.

Abstract vs. Nonobjective Art I

I am mildly nonplussed when one of my art friends corrects me while discussing abstract art. The preferred term, I am informed, is Nonobjective Art. As I understand it, abstract art, as we know it today, arose from late 19th century art movements and initially represented varying degrees of deviance from representation of real objects. This, in contrast with earlier ideas of art which held in high regard exacting verisimilitude in painting, often drew the ire of art critics and collectors. As the art form developed, abstract art became increasingly independent of reality - to the extent that in some works there is no recognizable reality. This is nonobjective art. But even this becomes problematic as we'll consider in a later post.
The two paintings here are abstracts. "Larry, Daryl and Daryl" (2007), a 20" x 73" encaustic triptych, may be considered nonobjective. "Kiss in the Forest" (2008) is an abstraction of reality. It is oil on canvas and 30" x 40".

Getting Started

Me a blogger? Never. I don't really read many blogs, not even art ones. Too many lame opinions and unsubstantiated fictions passed off as fact for my taste. But a friend in the business (a great encourager actually) has convinced me that I too can join the world of blogging. So get ready for lots of lame opinions and unsubstantiated fictions passed off as fact - and a sampling of the art I make as a means of avoiding insanity.
This painting titled "Diplomacy" from 2003 is actually a self portrait in which I acknowledge 'my other self' and that, for the moment, we are in sync. This oil on canvas diptych is 36" x 48".