Assignment 04: Proposal

Self-directed Project Proposal

During the course of this class, I’ve become increasingly interested in the middle ground of painting between high representation and pure abstraction. I find the idea of freeing colour, pattern, or texture from the form very liberating, but I still enjoy recognizable (if ambiguous) forms in a painting. I’d like to try to create a figurative painting using an additive and subtractive approach (visual weight) in the same lines of Philip Guston. I would also like to explore the use of gestural, active, expressive marks to shape a figure and space that plays with the nature of the 2-D vs. 3-D battle in a painting. The imagery will be based on a remembered pose and environment (waiting in the reception area at my dental office for a check-up). I have done a series of timed (10 drawings at 5 minutes each) from a few source photographs to ingrain the form in my memory, but I will not paint from a direct reference.

The three artists I wish to use as reference are:

Dana Schutz

Philip Guston

Willem DeKooning (1940s)

What I hope will result is a painting that features a figure that encourages an ambiguous or fragmented narrative and an obvious visceral, material response. In a way, this project will be a summation of what I’ve learned in Art 211 and 212 and will point the way for me as I continue on in my own work. 

Assignment 03 results: Elation

Elation, 64" by 40", acrylic latex mixed with acrylic on cardboard, 2013

Process images.

Session 1: intuitive marks, trying to find a rythme, ended up white washing overtop

Session 2: finding some of the major shapes, playing with other imagery, destroyed this one aswell (pretty much) 

Session 3: main shapes in place, more or less, checker and binary marks idea introduced

Session 4: Now just a matter of orchestrating the elements, finding balance, meaning of the painting presented itself

Session 5: Floral pattern introduced, subverting the idea of "decoration"

Session 6: orchestrating the green hues (that was so fun!!!)

Session 7: painting was almost there . . . just needed one more push

I found this assignment both liberating and exhausting but I'm very pleased with it. I think what I'm going to take with me the most is the idea of visual weight: trying different things in the painting and making choices on what to keep after seeing how it looks, being conscious about making the choices, and satisfied in the knowledge that in a sense, this is a way of checking your work (like redoing a math problem backwards to verify it). 

I love the acrylic latex house paint! You can cover large areas in very little time and the process of changing the hue with added acrylic paint is a wonderful exercise in colour mixing. I would like to continue using these materials! (maybe I'll try on one canvas next time :)