Composition #2

So I was racking my brain to come up with a scene for this Giorgione thing, freaking out because I couldn’t come up with anything good along with not wanting to take all the time to build some more figures. I wanted to get a big painting going while I worked on putting together some other ideas/setups/action figures/compositions. I’m referring to the still-lifes as compositions now, since the fruity-esque connotation the label has is unsettling to me. It’s essentially a 3-D composition I make into 2-D anyway. Anyhoot, I realized that I didn’t need any figures; this could just be some weird landscape of the mind, something that will let me explore the line between abstraction and representation. In the background I put white space since I am going to attempt to incorporate a wacky doodle back there in paint form. An inspired state of mind. An idea still unknown, taking shape, rumbling into consciousness, picking up some things along the way. Let’s see how this turns out. I got this picture along with some detail shots developed and the kid behind the counter at CVS asked me if it was a picture of trash. He seemed to be pretty impressed when I told him I was painting it. “That’s gonna be hard,” said he.

Size Matters

This painting is way too small (3x4 feet). I was talking about it today with a fellow artist. Some paintings just need to be really big. And with it’s relation to Rock N’ Roll, they pretty much are begging to be huge, so they can scream out to you. Bigger is just better in my mind. Although I do appreciate the really small (so cute). And if I do a painting that is medium sized, I make up for its inferiority by slapping on a bunch of paint. Then it becomes an entirely different creature. It’s what the last series was about, but not this one. I meant to bring my hand back into the process, a little more finesse, and damnit, that’s what I’ll do. This painting is building up quick though. It’s not even that small. I decided to give up on it now. Some paintings are just stepping stones. The first ones usually are. I could try and make a decent painting out of it at least. For now I’ll get ready for another. More thinking involved now. Got some crappy painting out of the way. There was another step in the middle of the two, but I must have thrown out the other one by accident. Trust me, it looks alot better on the computer than in real life.


"I believe being a painter is a very special privilege; it is a joy to try to be apart of the long and enduring tradition of the language of vision."
-Wayne Thiebauld

"Don’t damn me when I speak my piece of mind
Cause silence isn’t golden when I’m holding it inside
Trash collected by the eyes and dumped into the brain
It tears into out conscious thought now tell me who’s to blame"
-Axl Rose

Negative Creep

While I was working on this first drawing I asked myself the question (it’s always good to ask yourself questions, critical ones) why are there only guys in this drawing? It’s Rock N’ Roll isn’t it? The obvious answer is that there were no great female rockers in the early 90s. Seriously, who were there, the Cranberries? Melissa Etheridge? 4 Non Blondes? Now don’t get me wrong here, I've always found male chauvinism to be pretty damned hilarious, but this is a serious question. Now that I’ve typed it I really want to know. Courtney Love was alright, but really a poor WOman’s Nirvana. Hole to Nirvana is like Mary Cassat to Degas. She’s pretty good, but you could be looking at Degas. So I got to thinking, I need chicks in this next painting. And not just chicks, but groupies. So I’m envisioning Kurt, posed as in this classic photo (taken by Charles Peterson, who is known for photographing the Seattle music scene in the late 80’s, early 90’s) with groupies fawning after him. Where are all the art groupies?

Isn’t that what girls want; personality, no matter how goofy a guy looks. Personality is what it’s all about and sometimes the art itself takes a backseat. I always hated the idea of psychology, somebody telling me what’s going on inside my head, motherfucker, like any brain is like another. But although they’re all different I guess there are some similarities running through all of them, and it’s when I came across Jung that I was convinced that I have more in common with everybody than I originally thought. Just another assclown with a hint of the wacky. Bill Hicks takes it a step further with the whole one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively…so forth and what have you. But nonetheless, as I told me before, that’s what painting is, everything is there already, you just try everything until you happen upon your…style? It’s why I am a huge fan of experimenting, which is why I’m a fan of all experiences that don’t involve going up real high or going down too low. I’m a city dweller; I like to stay at sea level. It keeps me in touch with the people. Caves and mountains are for fools and goats; the bottom of the ocean is for rats. I’m not even an ocean fan. To quote Bill Hick’s once again it’s where dirt meets water, I don’t get the fascination. I’m a fan of man, as Al Pacino has said as the devil. I’m partial to art (fine art, movies, books) that talk about the human condition. I myself try and tap into the seedy underbelly of humanity. There’s something there that fascinates me, it fascinates a lot of people. It’s a tool wielded beautifully on the radio by Howard Stern. And it’s all about personality, showing it all, especially the worst, and at the same time ridiculing all, poking fun, keeping everything on the same level.

I’ve always believed that you’re only as good as your art and your art can only be as interesting as you. Personality goes a long way and it’s why the greatest artists throughout history were fucked up in one-way or the other. For some reason, these days, a lack of personality is praised in the art world today, along with irony and a cool intellectualism. My work revolves around me trying hard not to think, at least while I’m making it. It’s my one time to relax, ease my brain, the only way I don’t think about it is to do it. If I were another type of guy I would rebuild a carburetor. We rappers are role models we rap we don’t think.

And it all has to do with personality. These ideas were birthed for me while I was in Italy. The Italians started this whole personality thing. Taking the god-fearing strict coldness out of the art of the Middle Ages and infusing it with a little bit of man, and the potential of man as more than a vessel for religious fervor. Man was put up on the same level as god, just as god was brought down to the level of man. It was the birth of the ego, when being an intellectual was in vogue. Pop-culture meant how read up you was on the classics. It was retro. And while I was romping around the streets of Florence, I had my own little personal Renaissance. It was an amazing thing. I remember sitting on the steps of Sante Croce thinking about a young Michelangelo romping around these streets. It was his neighborhood. That’s when I started thinking, and that’s when the process started to have some significance. The materials and all that experimenting I took for granted began to have some deeper personal meaning, but when I came back to reality and tried to tell it's tale, it wouldn't let me. It was like that dancing frog in that Looney Tunes cartoon. Anytime I tried to show people I just looked like an idiot. I realized then that I had to reveal it without trying, then it would find it's way out in one way or another, on it's own, the way it should be.

Giorgione meets Wacky Doodles

This tall drink of water (8x4 feet) is the premiere of my brain farts onto the canvas. Wacky doodles I call them, dribblings from the unconscious. Something I’ve been doing in my sketchbook for years but never brought into painting. The best most interesting doodles are done while I’m doing something else: talking on the phone, listening to Howard Stern, half paying attention in class, solving the world’s problems. I tell people it’s a visualization of what is going on in your brain when you’re not thinking about anything in particular, or more accurately; when you aren’t aware of what you’re thinking of. It reads like a language to me. I like to think of my paintings as a representation of that space between consciousnesses, and these doodles speak the same language. I’ve never incorporated them into painting, although I’ve been doing them longer than I’ve painted. One of the reasons is I never wanted to put them out there to be scrutinized. Not because they’re personal, although they are. I didn’t want to take them too seriously. In my sketchbook, it doesn’t matter how they look; if the composition is interesting or there is enough depth. They were kind of like a hobby, a conversation with myself that was just for fun. But I always knew they would be bound for bigger things. I mean they’re really honest in a way. It’s the stuff that comes out of me when I just pick up a pen and draw. And the fun can still be here, I can just refine it in a painting now and again. The sketchbook is more laidback anyway. The other reason for not putting it into painting is that it never seemed to fit. I really had no desire to until now. The language seems to be similar though to the way I draw these rags etc.

In this painting I started with a sharpie drawing on a gessoes canvas and then put the cool grey wash over it. I never intended to keep the doodle in there. It was just my way of saying ‘Alright, just jump in there and get your feet wet.’ I actually did the drawing about 9 months ago, before I knew what the composition was going to be. I just recently put the wash over it. I originally had some Tintoretto-like comp planned, but this one will work just fine. This painting will be done in acrylic to accommodate the sharpie.



"Images apparently occupy a curious position somewhere between the statements of language, which are intended to convey a meaning, and the things of nature, to which we can only give a meaning."
-EH Gombrich

Giorgione Sketch

Of all the things I like about this painting, what really interests me is the storm (or the tempest) An approaching storm that to me has always represented that feeling when you know something is coming. The creative storm or a storm of inspiration, the feeling I get when I get some new ideas or right before I start some new paintings. When thinking about how to incorporate this composition into one of my paintings (I’ve had this idea for a while, I knew I wanted to make the landscape out of my collection of painting junk, but I wasn’t sure about the figures. I thought about the Ozzy album Blizzard of Ozz, and thought about an Ozzy tribute painting with him on one side and Randy Rhodes on the other. That didn’t seem right though. Then I thought about putting in Axl and Slash since I had the figures made. Maybe they would be on separate sides and some girls tossed in somewhere. The narrative always seems stupid though no matter what I come up with.


"Well I jumped into the river
Too many times to make it home
I'm out here on my own, an drifting all alone
If it doesn't show give it time
To read between the lines
'Cause I see the storm getting closer
And the waves they get so high
Seems everything We've ever known's here
Why must it drift away and die"
-Axl

Tempesta Bledsoe

I’ve always been a fan of this painting, ever since I went to Italy in 2001. Not that I saw it in person, but I learned about it in my art history class. Giorgione isn’t the biggest star of the Renaissance, even out of the Venetians, but he definitely needs props as training Titian. Aside from that, he does some great thing with color at times, those Venetian reds and greens that compliment each other so well. But what I love most about him and the other Venetian such as Titian and Tintoretto are the compositions. They make so much sense to me, and ever since my experience in Italy I have emulated/imitated/appropriated their compositional techniques/tricks many times in my own work. Typically I’ve never been a huge fan of Giorgione, with the exception of this painting.

What I love most about the Tempest is the mystery of it. Every painting in the Renaissance is about something; either based on some myth or biblical story, or is some sort of political or allegorical image. Nobody knows what exactly is going on in this one though. Historians have been in debate about what the meaning/significance of it is. Imagine that; hundreds of years after your death and scholars are arguing about what one of your paintings is about. The theories cover pretty much everything: an illustration of a myth, legend or biblical story, an allegorical image, a historical or political statement, an expression of the philosophical theories taught at the time. Then there’s the easy way out: simply there is no subject or there’s a hidden or personal meaning.

What I also thought was a riot was how when I was reading about the painting, of the 4 pages in the book, 3 and a half were tracking the history of the painting. It was like reading about a person, where it’s been, what it has seen, a way of personifying the painting. At one point there was a law passed that it couldn’t leave the country, it was so important to them. It even had it’s own private security guards, like the painting was some sort of celebrity. The best quote was from some Italian of importance whose name I didn’t bother to write down, after the painting returned from a show in London:

“First I would have the painting cleaned. In London it looked as though it had not washed it’s face.”

On Painting Again

You make me feel like myself again. Although there my be others, of all the other artforms there’s nobody who can satisfy me like you. It’s been over a year since we’ve been apart, and now that we’re together again, I am truly alive. It seems that any road I may go down leads me back to you. I’ll never find anything to replace you, no action figure, camera or computer will ever take your place. You complete me. How can I decribe what it is about you that does this to me? Your scent, the combination of mineral spirits, oil and gum turpentine. Your touch. The way my brush nestles into your gooey mounds and caresses the firm yet forgiving surface. The way the paint runs slowly down the canvas as I work it back into you. But the thing I love most about you is how when things get too muddy, when it all dries, you can brighten things up again. There have been good paintings and there have been bad paintings. But I wouldn’t trade either of them for anything.

Hair

In an attempt to take the shape of my paintings, I decided a while ago to grow my hair out. I also more recently started drinking Jim Beam, thinking it will make me feel more like a rock star. But after a sloppy night during the Patriots’ loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game, I decided to take a break. But I’m happy to say that I have rehabilitated my way back on it. It only took a few steps and I came crawling back. As for the hair, having life reflect art rather than art reflect life was my primary motivation, but it’s really just an excuse to grow my hair out. I’ve tried twice before; once in high school and once in college, but I never got past the first stage of awkwardness. This time I blew past that stage and am now on to the second stage of awkwardness, and approaching the stage where it can no longer be hidden underneath a hat. Growing out your hair is a serious commitment; you really need to accept the fact that you are going to look like an asshole for a year. The last time I got a haircut was in Berlin 7 months ago.

Drawing 1: Done and Done

I was feeling sluggish again, dragging myself across the paper, tightening up some things that need to be tightened. The freshness is gone, but it’s ok, this is the end. Ideally I’d like the energy to still be there but it’s not happening today. Has it been my lack of sleep lately or is it just that evening hump where I would usually go home and make dinner during. I’m not in a regular routine yet. I’m all over the place. I need a steady routine like Giacometti, or a professional athlete. One thing I do know is that if I just keep at it I’ll find my groove. Like in football practice again, you get your form down, technique, you do the same drills over and over again in practice until it’s routine, until you don’t even have to think about it anymore, you just do it. The drawing is like the week of practice before the game. You know the game plan, you know what you have to do, but all that matters is what you do during the game (the painting). And all that practice does is get you ready, because there’s always the unexpected, the things practice can’t get you ready for, it’s what separates the good from the great, the men from the boys; the ability to adjust. So now it’s Saturday and we’ve gone over everything there is to go over before the game. Just some last minute details to go over. Reiterating but by no means an intense workout, watch some more film, go over the game plan, and you’re ready. As ready as you’re gonna be at least. Ready enough to not think about it so much, slip into a gear hopefully. Anyway, the drawing must be done.


"I work all the time. Not that I want to, but I’m addicted. My brother sits for me from noon to 1:30. Then I sort of work on those things. Then I take an hour for a bite to eat next door. My wife sits for me from 4:00 until dark. Then I start again. I have coffee and at 9:00 I work again until midnight… I have to go to bed at 3am to be more or less on my feet the next day. It’s slavery."
-Giacometti

Drawing 1: Track 5 (Johnny Insane-o)

In the midst of drawing I sometimes (today being one of those times) feel like I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown (although I've never actually had one, but I imagine this is what it feels like). I can’t really explain the feelings aside from that I feel like I’m going insane, an intense feeling of anxiousness and awareness, awareness of what I don’t know, a looming insanity, it’s a time when the act of drawing can be a pretty intense experience and all I can do is try and channel these energies into something creative, hoping something good will come of it before I pass out. The feeling probably lasts no longer than a minute or two, and unfortunately I never pass out. This is why I don’t smoke pot or take hallucinatory drugs anymore. I feel like I slip into this state on my own sometimes (always for some reason when I listen to The Beatles’ Revolver) and any help from those types of drugs will sink me deeper into myself into a place I have no business being. Luckily alcohol seems to have the reverse effect, and I can’t afford a coke habit. Sometimes I wish I had some cool disease like epilepsy to explain these thoughts, but I chalk it all up to the creative storm. All I know is there has to be some reason I didn’t take any pictures between this stage of the drawing and the last. This is some leap. I know I’m a little behind on updating this blog, but come on.



“He pondered, among other things, the fact that there was a stage in his epileptic condition just before the fit itself (if it occurred during waking hours) when all of a sudden, amidst the sadness, spiritual darkness, and oppression, there were moments when his brain seemed to flair up momentarily and all his vital forces tense themselves at once in an extraordinary surge. The sensation of being alive and self-aware increased almost tenfold in those lightning-quick moments. His mind and heart were bathed in extraordinary illumination. All his agitation, all his doubts and anxieties, seemed to be instantly reconciled and resolved into a lofty serenity, filled with pure, harmonious gladness and hope, filled too with the consciousness of the ultimate cause of all things. But these moments, these flashes, were merely the prelude to that final second (never more than a second) which marked the onset of the actual fit.”
-From The idiot, by Dostoevsky

It's like this minus the illumination.

Drawing 1: Track 4

I was drawing and I was tired, sluggish, but I couldn’t nap I had work to do; self-motivation and discipline, just like everything else. I wasn’t going to get out of this by trying to jump off my bed and sprain my ankle like in High School to get out of football practice. Ah, I could never go through with it. Just suck it up, that’s how it goes. But I’m out of shape, it’s like the beginning of double sessions, when you’ve done some light running and lifting over the summer, but you’re in no way in football shape. It’s like running 6 miles a day, but almost collapsing after 10 minutes of full court basketball. It’s different. I can think about my work, read for a few months and ideas develop but the act of drawing recedes skill-wise. You need to do it, keep up with it, and I’ve been slowly shaking the cobwebs off, noticing things again, communicating more clearly, like being with a new girl, it takes some getting used to, but if you just be yourself, everything ends up pretty smooth, communication just falls into place. Looking at Jim Dine, applying some tricks he reminded me of. Anyway, the wet is introduced (ink, watercolor, acrylic) and I have a whole new energy, a whole new freshness. The figures in the background weren't working out so I wiped them out with some acrylic, and extended the bar across the paper. It gave me a rush, just to wipe them out like that. They weren't working out and I wanted no trace of them. They were almost taunting me to get rid of them. And I said fuck you Jo-Boo, I do it myself.


"I function best when there is a response going on between myself and the canvas as though the canvas is alive and it’s another person making all sorts of suggestions, saying yes to this and no to that."
-Elmer Bischoff

Drawing of a girl

Although this doesn't relate directly to this current body of work, the portrait is a genre that has always run along side whatever I am doing artistically. I have this love hate relationship with the human race, and am always interested in how that manifests itself in the portraits of people I know, usually good friends. This is Meg, a graduate of the Syracuse University illustration department. I came across her at my open studio in October, and when I recently overheard her saying nobody had done her portrait before, I felt it my painterly duty to take on this task. I was excited as any guy would be to a girl’s first, artistically speaking of course.

Drawing 1: Track 3

This is as much as I could erase it. The pile of eraser shavings is getting more and more ridiculous. This is one of those drawings where everything seemed to generally fall into place at the begining, although I have to make Cornell bigger than he is now. I think I established a pretty decent structure and now it's time to rip into it with some wetness.

Drawing 1: Track 2

I erased the whole thing, which I intended to do from the very beginning, leaving a ghost of the old drawing, a way in which I can freely move stuff while knowing what was there before, keeping some things in the same position but going over their form again. The image is slowly getting burned into my skull Already it’s going a little smoother, not much though. All this erasing feels good, the muscles are getting back into shape. A pile of eraser shavings on the floor. I’m using Utrecht brand printmaking paper, great for drawing; it can really take a beating. Later I’ll go into it with ink and paint and other wet media. For now though, more lines. The second time around I’ll add a little color, some browns and ochres. It’s all getting erased again though. The plan is to have this image lodged into my brain so when I make the painting I’ll be able to rely less on the source. An elaborate sketch. Mistakes are accepted an expected at this point. I just have to make sure I spot them though, but I know. You can make excuses to yourself but you always know.



"Anyhow, mistakes are what lead you through life."
-John Frusciante

Drawing 1: Track 1

6 hours and 11 beers later:
Clumsy fuckin hand; that’s all I could say while doing this drawing
I realized while I was doing this that it was the first time in months, almost a year that I had done any painting or drawing aside from my sketchbook and a few dancing penises (www.johnnyartfaig.com). And damn am I rusty. I felt like I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, my hand in eye just wouldn’t work together, sore shoulder, my eye looking but not seeing. Flopping around the paper I couldn’t get a grasp on the form, which is what goes on the early drawing stage. Using a network of lines which move across the surface of what I’m looking at, I essentially get to know the form, feeling out the composition, moving stuff around, until the drawing emerges out of this search. A little communication is all it takes, like any healthy relationship. And this one drove me to drink.
This is step one in the drawing process. When I’m on my game things evolve gradually out of this mess of lines. My rustiness frustrates the shit out of me, even though I should have expected it. Although there is that part of me that thinks I should just be able to pick up a pencil after a year I guess it’s like anything you go a while without doing, except riding a bike. Anthony Kiedis in his book Scar Tissue talks about picking up girls in the early days of the Chili Peppers, how he would get in a groove when he did it regularly, but when he took some time off it was a lot harder. The amazing thing is he meant taking a DAY off, which is pretty incredible/ridiculous. Of course he was a lead singer in a band, and to be fair, they weren’t real girls, they were groupies.


“I’m so in love yes with an artist
Imagination, he’s the smartest
Robert Williams stroke and splatter
I attest to your gray matter
Living kings how true it rings
These are just a few of my favorite things”
-Kiedis

So close to painting

Now that I have the figures made I go to my trusty supply of paint rags, gloves and empty paint tubes and medium containers, as well as a slew of crusty paintbrushes and broken palette knives. I knew I’ve been saving these all these years for a reason. I see it as a sill life slash landscape slash multi-figure scene. There is no narrative in the traditional sense at this point; after all this time both my ideas and drawing/painting skills will be rusty. This first painting will be getting me back into the swing of things/ a springboard into this new work. The figures are placed in a reaction to Gauguin’s composition and have no special significance to each other, although there is some history to the figures in the background; Scott Weiland in the middle of Axl (he has no hair yet, I need to get some more dolls) and Slash (formally of Guns N’ Roses) while Slash and Weiland have teamed up in Velvet Revolver (Axl is milking the Guns N’ Roses name for all it’s worth, and he’s still an asshole I hear).
In the foreground I used a well know photo of Kurt Cobain doing a flip while playing guitar (here he’s playing a paintbrush) and Cornell is looking out confronting the viewer as if to say ‘Don’t you remember me? I was just as influential as Kurt.’
So, we’ll see where this goes. Right now these guys are just representing the creative mind, or the creative part of the mind. A landscape of the mind????
What the fuck is painting anyway, a pretty picture?
Do you know anyone else who goes through this much effort to the pre-painting?
Bill Belichick would be proud.


"You should never pick up your paintbrush unless your heart is fully attached to it."
-Jacob Lawrence

I don't buy that for a second, and I hope he doesn't either.

Rock N'Roll Action Figures

Now that I have an image in mind and I know how many figures I need, the next step is to build the characters. I go through my collection of doll and action figure parts for the right arms/leg/torsos. Since they’re based on these kings of grunge, not only do I have something to base them off of, the rough patched together look will work well for them. Usually what I do is start with the torso and build a simple wire armature to connect the arms/legs/head to. The head is usually the one thing that’s sculpted out of clay to get a pretty close likeness, as close as most action figures get. With these figures I wanted to have all of the pieces moveable and sturdy, forcing me to invest a lot more time into them. I must have spent hours hunched over, trying to attach Weiland’s legs to his body. This allowed me to REALLY get to know them. Knowing generally how the body works is essential in rendering the figure, and in this way of working I’m essentially creating my own anatomy. After they are constructed I slap a couple coats of gesso on them, mix up a batch of action figure orange and paint them. The materials used in making them as well as the dress of the person determines whether or not I’ll paint or make the clothes. With Cornell, since he wore jeans I just patched together a pair for him, but with Weiland, I wanted to give him some pinstriped dress pants and the legs I gave him just happened to have pants with cuffs on them. Plus I really liked how they looked with the wire. You can take artistic liberties you know. Size is important too, since I’m going for an illusionistic depth created in a shallow scene. Cornell, who will be in the foreground, is a lot bigger than Weiland, who will be in the background.

Now why action figures do you ask. Aside from them never moving, I’ve always been interested in the history of an object. I’m a hoarder. You know, one of those people who refuse to throw anything out believing they all have sentimental value. Especially but definitely not limited to things like notes, letters, shopping lists (anything handwritten or handmade), and anything and everything from childhood, and especially objects with comical value or a story attached to it. In the back of my closet is the door to my High School Football locker. I hated playing football, but I think it’s pretty damned hilarious that I have it.

And by using these old toys as models for my paintings, I feel as if I’m incorporating their history and character into the work and they somehow find their way into the paintings. Scouring flea markets, thrift stores and eBay, I feel like I’m collecting memories. And by ripping them apart and putting them back together again with wire, plaster and hot glue, then painting them a generic “action figure orange” they’re transformed into something new, my own creation. With these the whole idea of toys and action figures is a physical representation of the collective unconscious. Everybody generally played with the same toys, but used them in different ways. When I played with my GI Joes I didn’t have them fighting or anything, they were playing football and fixing the roof to my mom’s old dollhouse. I'm a realist at heart. It’s just like painting, everybody uses the same materials, but what you do with them is unique, and the more interesting your voice the more people that will give a shit. You always hear how art reflects life and vice versa, and it’s one of those things that you take for granted and assume is true because it makes so much sense, but then you figure out how it actually applies to you and it really makes sense in a concrete way. And as much as the process means to me I’m going to attempt to work through these ideas and have the paintings represent themselves I guess. This is my attempt at creating paintings that speak directly about the artistic process.

The main characters in this story will be played by the Rock stars who raised my creativity. Since I believe most art to come from a dialogue between the unconscious and consciousness, what better representatives than the characters who rummage around our heads, screaming and at times bellowing their lyrics at us. Meet bizarro Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. Coming soon: Kurt Cobain and Guns N’ Roses.




"The essence of my creative work is an internal model which is shaped by both conscious and unconscious elements. The impulse coming form the world around (reality) is treated in the unconscious boiler of an internal laboratory to which I have no access. Inspiration is, then, the doorbell to the door of a house which tells me that the internal model is ready and I can come up and collect it. During the course of this process the pre-product emerges into the conscious zone."
-Jan Svankmejer

The Sketch

I sketch out the painting (Gauguin's "Arearea" by the way) basically getting to know the composition, analyzing it, figuring out what I want to do with it, how I want to incorporate it.




"An artist must be on guard against the danger of producing something simpleminded rather than simple or making something complicated instead of developing something truly complex, and be able to acknowledge when the original print is better than the ‘gilded lily’ unwittingly produced."
-Wayne Thiebauld

Gauguin

With these new paintings I’m going to take the Artist vs. Musician thing a step further by putting early 90’s Rock Stars in paintings based on old Master compositions. How did I come to that conclusion did I ask. Well, istead of limiting this original idea to Soundgarden, I decided that what Soundgarden does is really sum up that whole era of music for me, the music which raised my creativity, and whose lyrics make up a huge part of the inner working of my brain (along with useless things like the blood code to Mortal Combat: ABACABB). I also thought about relating the two by claiming music went through a Renaissance in the early 90’s, as bands such as Nirvana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Guns N’ Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails, all emerged out of the post-synthesized/hair banded 80’s sound to create amazing meaningful music that paved the way for a new era of music (even though that era turned into shitty rap-rock garbage and other crap like Coldplay). That idea, as valid as it is, doesn’t do much to justify but plays a part in the work.

And ever since I went to study in Florence I have incorporated Old Master compositions. I see it as a way to ingage in a dialogue with / pay homage to the ones who came before me. There are a few paths that painting started to take in the Late Renaissance, those paths branch out even further as time went on through Cezanne and the whole Picasso/Matisse branches until we come to the current abortion of post-post-post modernism. I’ve always felt an affinity towards the painterly path, started by Titian in those brushstrokes defining details found on Pietron Aretino, carried on by Rembrandt, through the impressionists and . The ability to sum something up in one brushstroke.

Since my goal is to make paintings more directly related to the painting process, I feel my apprapriation completely justified, and essential. In regards to Gauguin in particular, I picked this painting mainly because of the way he breaks up the space. His landscapes almost feel like a pile of rags. In terms of personality, he is also one of the most interesting.
The whole human experience thing, Gauguin definitely took advantage of that.