New York City Solo Show Dates

Pink, Green

oil on panel

24" x 24"


"Nicole Maynard: Images of Optimism" runs October 28 - November 22, 2008, at the Bowery Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, 4th floor, NY, NY 10001 646.230.6655. The opening reception will be Saturday, November 1st from 4 - 6 p.m.; the public is invited. A full press release will be posted sometime in September.

I am looking forward to the show. I am still painting towards it and have some ideas which works to put in. I began this blog immediately after my last show, so I have quite a bit of work to choose from. It will mainly be paintings, but I am thinking of showing a folio of small prints (The Butterfly Book) on a pedestal for visitors to handle with gloves like many artists books (check out this on-line collection at Otis College of Art and Design ) are exhibited. I will do the same for a book of watercolors I am working on, if I am happy with it in the end.

I am just glad the show closes after opening night of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince because my husband, son, and I are die-hards. I'm hoping we can see it in IMAX 3D. Taking down isn't as hard as hanging, but it is still quite a job; this will give us something extra to chat about while we spackle.

It Feels Right

16" x 20"

oil on panel

I am a position described by many artists throughout my art education. It is the state of simultaneously not knowing what one is doing and knowing exactly. I can confidently say that I am both sure and unsure. It is annoying, but is supposed to be reflective of the creative process, transition, and discovery. It is a bit different from the attitude needed for sales, for instance.

I have an endless supply of ideas and need to make many pictures to explore them all graphically. I believe in them all as artworks that can stand alone, but I also see them as different ways of getting at the same thing, facets. This thing I am trying to get at is Eternal Truth and it is obvious and elusive all at once, hence the conundrum.
It Feels Right is about this "feeling in the dark" way of painting. Emotion, vision, the mind's eye, visual thought/organization and paint all combine in making an art work. I could add "imagination" and "perception" but "visual thought/organization" is already slightly redundant. It is emblematic, yet unconcerned about being nameable. It is itself; it is not nothing. The figure/ground relationship
is somewhat fluid, a comment on entropy, living things, and nature. The blue on the brown reminds me of the reflections the sky makes on roads.

New Yorker Obama Cartoon

My two cents regarding the Obama cartoon by Barry Blitt on the cover of the recent New Yorker http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7505953.stm is different from my opinion on the Danish cartoon of Muhammad. The right's uses fear and rumor tactics to discredit Obama. Blitt's illustration of these misconceptions (lies) is shocking and horrid because it made the lies visible. It gave them a new form, something that shows them for what they are. There is the risk, however, that anyone ignorant enough to believe these lies in the first place will see the picture as confirmation. The scariest thing about America today is the number of people unable to discern fact and fiction from the media. It seems that many are easily manipulated. It would serve the country well if a course in understanding journalism and images were included with English literature classes in high school (as well as a semester in mediation and keep those art and music classes, by the way).

I don't think Blitt's cartoon was a mistake. I think the outrage shouldn't be that someone made it and published it, but for the situation it reflects.

In contrast, the cartoons published of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper took an image that is holy and satirized it. The sacred should be left sacred and the pictures were unthinking instigation. Obama's integrity shouldn't be slandered, but such high standards aren't reached in U.S. politics, as the New Yorker cartoon makes evident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy

Red

24" x 24"

oil on panel

This painting uses a stage-like format again. The curtains double as trees. It is hot, intense; certainly climate crisis is a subtext. There is a sense of movement despite the square nature of the composition. Some relief is offered in the gauzy pale pink up top and the high-light of fresh grass green where the ground meets the red air. In high school I did a pencil drawing of a forest on fire, the only color being red pencil. This is more sophisticated but in the same tone, the blackish foreground feeling of peat, ash, mud. Red and black are always dramatic, but the particular hues chosen and the handling of the paint reference these specifically earthy things. It makes me think of swamps, walking on hot coals, and Greek theatre. It resists complete narrative in favor of a painted experience.

Purple Veil & Ten Years Later

Purple Veil, oil on panel, 20" x 16"

Ten Years Later, oil on canvas, 14" x 14"

I'm painting over some old paintings. No one should ever bother to x-ray them in hopes that there is a hidden masterpiece underneath. I have pretty good judgement about these things and usually don't miss what was. It is an interesting process, a dialogue with a past self. Hindsight lends a hand. I stand by the majority of my older work. I am unable nor desire to repeat the past. The old paintings are springboards for new ideas; either by keeping some of what is there or by having the reaction to negate everything in favor of a new direction. George Lucas has been critizied for wanting re-do parts of the Star Wars trilogy. I understand both the desire to keep tweeking a work and to let it stand, marked by the context of its time of creation. Artist Pierre Bonnard was said to have retouched one of his paintings after it was hanging in a museum. There is always the danger of over-working a piece, to be so compelled to keep going that the piece is taken past freshness. Giacommetti's brother, Diego, often pulled sculptures and paintings away from the artist in an effort to curb this tendency. He was so brilliant, hard-working, and prolific that the compulsion probably served him more than hindered.

Purple Veil is a fresh panel, nothing to paint over, although a few sessions on it has left it pretty bumpy. The light rectangle is like a time dimension, unpenetrable to our gaze. It reminds me of the veil in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that Sirius falls into when he dies; Harry is unable to follow. This is similar with the pale blue rectangle of Ten Years Later, which, although also a portal, is made of thinner air. The title came from painting over the image underneath, which was done in 1998. I don't have the tendency to overwork things. With Chinese painting and caligraphy in mind, I try to be alert for the moment when the image clicks. The tricky thing is to be open to unusual outcomes, but that is the exciting part.