The city as living organism

This piece is based on a reading about the Anthropocene. I interpreted the text and thought of the city as the biggest change that humanity has on the environment (the production of is what produces so much waste and pollution.) So I knew that I would be trying to evoke a sense of the city through the many greys that are present. But I also wanted to infuse the work with personal experience, lived experience, a lived impression of the city as a pedestrian (which is mainly how I perceive the city). Below are the results. I'm quite excited by these and may choose to pursue this line of inquiry to make a larger series.

Comments from the critique last week:
-doorways, windows, walls
-embedded in architecture
-old metal
-streets
-shop fronts
-pleasurable experience (muted, subtle tonality)
-topographical
-concrete walls/layering
-ambulatory system/placement
-more subtly nuanced
-familiarity of space/subject
(this last point being important because it may act as an effect hook for the viewer for future works)

TEAL: a work in progress

Since I'm all done my grad school applications (woo) I've found a new project to focus on for the rest of term in the advanced studio class I'm taking. I've decided to explore the idea of the colour "teal." What does this mean? It has a lot to do with the ideas I explored in my piece called "Coral Pink" and highlights the difficulty in naming and translating colours. What I'm most interested in is exploring the in-between states of definable hues Blue, Blue-Green, Green. I want to dig into those unknownable, unnameable stages as hues shift from being defined as one or the other. Can a hue be more than one name? Why is this important? It is important because being conscious of colour is how we navigate the visible world. I want to see what happens when those zones of "in-between" are given some kind of materiality. 

Starting with some quick oil on paper sketches.

Grid paintings

Some thoughts:
-strong presence
-doing something . . . but what
-rational but odd and vibrating
-gravity / weight
-illusory depth and flatness
-human and thought = ?
-division of space
-plane
-movement

Jewel Blue Beret

Velvet
Against grey
Auburn
Coffee cup

Abstraction on the edge of figuration
Lines that are lines
But take you somewhere else
Denying that leap
Keeping you on the surface

White on Naples yellow
(building hues)
Copper / green lines / grids / windows

Deep marine
Aqua teals
Memories of the sea
Seawall in Nanaimo
Whale watching
Boat ride with J
I fear the sea
Fathoms of the unseen
Unknowable
Threatening
Now threatened