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Lamborghini and Ford GT 40. Hanging with friends at Manhattan Classic Car club drinking Laphroaig. I think that's how you spell it. Scotch! We were drinking scotch!   The inspirational spark for future paintings!   I met up with Abena at the car club. She modeled for me about 12 years ago. I hadn't seen her since. Out of the ether she said hello on Linkd In and we were drinking scotch and catching up a few days later. She was in sales at New York Press and had modeled for fun. She's still in sales and still really cool!  I'm not sure if it's just a mood I'm in or that a lot of the art I've been looking at and liking has been more monochromatic. I'm thinking more in black and white and gray tones with more subtle color lately. Or maybe it's the dreariness of the winter that will not end. Work in progress.     Working through the compositions. The pose is a few different reference photos of this pose put together. The back ground is coming along but I'm not quite feeling it yet. I think if I approached it a little looser it will have more life. I can totally see this better in oils. The thing is, I just picked up a huge book of Ashley Wood art. Over the last few years I have only seen his work here and there. I was in a comic book store and came across a book the size of a phone book... A New York City, comes with it's own wheel barrel to move it, sized book. I immersed myself in study for at least an hour. It was inspirational. The link I added to his work in progress shots don't show off how wonderful the work is. I think they are large acrylic paintings but the photos he takes are awful. Mr Wood is pretty loose. I love the energy of his paint application, the stylization is beautiful... The palette is minimal and he seems to love the female form. This drawing is marker on paper. I wanted to paint this the whole time!   Sketch in a coffee shop.  Drawing on the subway.
The process of finding the right figure in the right pose to make an image that transcends it's parts is very difficult. I personally like to have a focus or main subject. Like a figure for example. Now you need to have the pose figured out. Sometimes I get a pose and figure I like but whatever I put around them just doesn't work. My solution to this is to literally go back to the drawing board. Of course the "drawing board" for me is also called the coffee shop where much caffeine is consumed.  The initial idea was to leave in the actual chair my model , Roggie , was sitting. I thought it good to put something mechanical that the viewer could relate.  I decided to take the chair out anyway. Here I was more focused on the pipes originating from her head. Also, I began exploring what might be inside the pipes. Later on this knowledge might be useful when looking at other paintings as folks familiar with this work might begin to wonder what might have been inside pipes in earlier paintings and what is in the pipes of newer ones. I base a lot of my things on structure and depict them in three dimensional way, so I think about how they are built, what they might be made out of, etc.  Adding more figures, variations on composition, still no chair.
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CalendarJUNE
Opening at MF Gallery 213 Bond St. Brooklyn, NY JUNE 15, 6-10pm Please look over the Prints page and get them all. Have a good Easter/Passover or month. Now is a good time to commission a portrait or purchase some physical art for the winter! If you'd like to commission me for a painting... Portraits with my surreal aesthetic only. The face you have and my paint brushes! Estimated turnaround 3 months. Shorter will cost more. Contact me now. Last Rites Gallery 325 W. 38th Street, between 8th & 9th Ave, NYC: (212) 529.0666
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