12 Angry Women

Just received word that my piece Hangers (Entanglements) was accepted to the 12 Angry Women show at the Soundry in Northern Va. Its a fun concept- a juried show using a jury of 12 women- the catch is the artist had to be male. Yep, I'm a dude. Its a bummer that I'll be out of town for work the weekend of the opening but I look forward to seeing what they came up with.

I personally think Entanglements is the weakest of the Things I Really Don't Like series, but looking at the images together in my past couple of posts- it probably does show better. In person, I don't believe it is in the same league. I think I noted earlier that we need a new camera and I would say this is proof. The richness of the surface simply does not show in these images

http://blog.soundry.net/

Speed Painting

I am notoriously slow to complete paintings, adding layer after layer of paint until it feels "done." Well I set out to make a painting in two days and well, it took 5 to get to this point. I'm really happy with it but had planned to keep working the background. Instead, I'm taking Lori's advice and calling it quits. It is part of the Things I Really Don't Like series titled Hanger (Nemesis/Lurking). It is 36" square, acrylic on canvas.

Note: We are getting a new camera soon because our digital images do not do the paintings justice. Our camera was nice 5 or 6 years ago when I bought it to use mainly for snapshots but its time for an upgrade.

New Work

Its been a while but I have finished some new work. These came about while I was messing around and I think I've stumbled onto a path that may lead to many ideas. I've been working with still lifes but to represent people- in other words these still life works were meant as portraits. For instance, the shoes that I completed earlier are actually a portrait of Lori. So thinking about still life, I came on the idea of painting things I like as self portrait but then I thought about flipping that around- how about things I don't like? I have a real problem with my hands and arms, especially when I have to fight with things. Anything that gets tangled can be a real problem. I was mad at some hangers one day and threw them on the floor and, whoa- the pattern was interesting. I started painting a picture of them and this whole idea started to grow. I believe I have a large bank of compositions with the line and it is interesting to think of these things as a nemesis, evil twin type of doppelganger thing. The first (Entanglements) is a little shaky in terms of technique but with the second (Nemesis) I feel like I'm getting my chops back.