oil on panel
20" x 16"
I saw some of my favorite paintings while walking through the permanent collection at the MOMA. Rothko, Agnes Martin, Lee Krasner; they're all so good. The paintings are made of color and light and create respite. On the edgier side there is DeKooning's Woman I, ferocious and so strong. I love Pollock's Gothic, especially his blue. Whatever is being expressed in an artwork, I respond mostly to art that is intense, like these. I want to see life squeezed into the canvas.
Homage to Painting came out of this museum experience (museums are NOT boring!). I had the impulse to lay flowers in front of the paintings, as I am so appreciative of the life lived, the achievement, the art that is passed on. The pictures are living testimonies to the artists who made them. The light and hope that emanates from them reminds me of the white paper of
Schindler's List that held the names of the people he was trying to save. The paintings save me.
2 comments:
It's funny -- I get something very different from what you describe from this painting. Instead of the white glow of a painting already achieved and inspiring you, I see the canvas as blank, and that flower just brimming with the potential energy to fill it up. The canvas is just waiting for an artist like you to make it happen...
Even though it's not quite the message you're sending, I have to say I really love the one I'm receiving.
I think you're right about the other meaning. Now that you mention it, and I'm glad you did, the white is a clean slate. I think I am trying to figure out where my work is going and where I fit in with the long line of painters who came before me and those who are to come.
A lot of artists don't like discussing their work because they know that their take on it may be too narrow an interpretation. So much happens unconsciously in the process, which is why art takes time to truly see.
Thanks!
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