More interrogation of my painting process
Thoughts on a recent series
Think, paint, rinse, repeat
Try not to think while you are making artwork. Just make it. Think before. Think after. Sometimes take a break during the making. It’s okay to think then. But don’t think while you are making. Just make.
Back in the summer I released a series of thirty paintings and put them up for sale on my shop. After a solid couple years of just drawing, I wanted to make something small, using only graphite and gouche. They also needed to be affordable for people to purchase. They ended up being two separate groups of 15 pieces each, respectively titled “Minor prophets, nobody cares about your flame thrower (blue series)” and “Our abandoned privacy policy read aloud as an ancient saga (gold series).”
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, though I’ve made many successful paintings in the past, lately painting has felt pretty distant and “unknowable.” I’m pretty sure I’m over-thinking things. I also know that I’ve become pretty disinterested in a lot of painting I see happening online lately, and this has me questioning what I want to accomplish this time around.
In a sick twist of fate, some of the very moves I’ve made in my own paintings have started to seem empty - superficial and mimetic - when I see others do them. There is a particular type of mark making I enjoy. It’s a little rough and pretty abstract - I “use” paint as a way to mark the surface rather than as a tool to render something recognizable. I like to include fractured speech or text elements. I draw simple icon-like shapes that are part doodle, part logo. I also like to move quick and build up the surface, covering over previous layers with new marks, sometimes intentionally leaving a trace of what was previously there.
None of this is new. Artists have been doing it for years. If you check out the hashtag #contemporarypainting on Instagram, you’ll see a ton of artists working in an abstract manner using a similar approach that I’ve just described. Most of the time it feels too familiar and disappointing. Ok, so, yes, tons of artists just repeat historical tropes because it sells. Basic abstract expressionism sells. Bright colors and scribbly marks sell. Artists with big white studios spaces, posing next to the giant canvases they’ve heroically splashed paint on with a bucket, and pushed it around with a janitorial mop looks really impressive on social media.
But if everything is impressive then nothing is.
Or something like that. And never mind the resurgence of figuration in painting. The human form is popular again. This is not what I paint. So, I don’t like most current abstraction, and I don’t paint the human form. I don’t make trendy paintings. Even though I till operate in the mode of abstraction, cashing in on the zeitgeist has never been my jam. In fact I think my body rejects popular trends on a cellular level. There is a small, envious chip on my shoulder towards those who know how to cash in. I wouldn’t even know how to produce work that is popular. Because of this I am not swimming in a pool of gold coins.
I know I’m not alone in this.So why is my work any different?
I think that has been my challenge lately. I’m not entirely sure if it is. I want my work to feel connected to the time I live in. I want to make marks I enjoy. I like splashing paint and making a mess. I do need them to be rooted in an in-between state - one that doesn't feel a part of the past or future. The present feels unrecognizable. It probably always does. We can see the past. We can envision an ideal future. But now is rarely what we want.
The way I make marks has a source. The icon language I’ve developed over the last few years has informed my approach to composition. To draw a comparison, the last body of paintings I made between 2010-11 were all about an intense desire to negotiate complexity and analyze relationships through abstraction. They might have even been in conversation with Ab Ex directly. With this recent set of paintings mentioned above, I’m seeing my work is less about how things are arranged, and more specifically about breaking through the t.v. static of thought, belief, and ideas and seeing what makes it through the filter. Perhaps even changing the filter. How are my experiences, altering my memory of myself and the world I live in?
Perhaps these pieces are just speaking in tongues hoping some kid shaking in the front row will jump up and show off his gift of interpretation. Maybe I am subconsciously forming a new language that is dead on arrival. We don’t know how to read or speak to each other anymore. We only interpret AI generated images and 10 second video clips with the patience and grace of a 7 year old who’s had too much sugar and needs cuddle time with Mom.
I’m gearing up for a solo show in the spring. I am already starting to work on some studies and tests that are perfectly, annoyingly, uncertain. I do not like them. They feel unrecognizable. So they must be right.
Right?
So why is my work any different?
I think that has been my challenge lately. I’m not entirely sure if it is. I want my work to feel connected to the time I live in. I want to make marks I enjoy. I like splashing paint and making a mess. I do need them to be rooted in an in-between state - one that doesn't feel a part of the past or future. The present feels unrecognizable. It probably always does. We can see the past. We can envision an ideal future. But now is rarely what we want.
The way I make marks has a source. The icon language I’ve developed over the last few years has informed my approach to composition. To draw a comparison, the last body of paintings I made between 2010-11 were all about an intense desire to negotiate complexity and analyze relationships through abstraction. They might have even been in conversation with Ab Ex directly. With this recent set of paintings mentioned above, I’m seeing my work is less about how things are arranged, and more specifically about breaking through the t.v. static of thought, belief, and ideas and seeing what makes it through the filter. Perhaps even changing the filter. How are my experiences, altering my memory of myself and the world I live in?
Perhaps these pieces are just speaking in tongues hoping some kid shaking in the front row will jump up and show off his gift of interpretation. Maybe I am subconsciously forming a new language that is dead on arrival. We don’t know how to read or speak to each other anymore. We only interpret AI generated images and 10 second video clips with the patience and grace of a 7 year old who’s had too much sugar and needs cuddle time with Mom.
I’m gearing up for a solo show in the spring. I am already starting to work on some studies and tests that are perfectly, annoyingly, uncertain. I do not like them. They feel unrecognizable. So they must be right.
Right?
Some of the pieces discussed in this post are available to purchase for $75 +free shipping.
Bonus round
Free Static live at the New Music Festival, 7pm, Free, All Ages
I’m performing Friday, Oct 13th at the New Music Festival. It will be an outdoor performance, outside the Farmers Pavillion in downtown Eugene, OR. We played this event last year and it was a great time. Hopefully we don’t get rained out this year. You can hear last years set on our Bandcamp page.
San Francisco trippin’
Some snaps from the family summer road trip to San Fransisco.
