Etudes Et Essais #3
Inspiration:
Detail of ‘Etudes Et Essais #3, Fausse Peinture’.
In this work I finished recently, I was interested in the dynamic between the flowers and the painting behind.
Shot from a Kiefer/Van Gogh installation
The Van Gogh painting here… Its very simple. Its basically 3 bands of charged color.
When looking at this photo, I repeatedly have brought to mind Rothko… more…
Initial Goal:
For the vase of flowers, I wanted something that could also contain just a couple of small flowers.
I like this glass vase.
Getting Started:
When I thought of this concept of flowers obscuring paintings on walls, I planned to do a series.
Making a big change
I had problems with the glass vase. I was stuck for a month on how the water would reflect the picture in the background. I couldn’t get anything to work. The whole picture was feeling stuck.
This shift made a big difference.
Trying to make it come together:
I was starting to feel pretty good about the work… but it still wasn’t fully working.
After some thought I decided to:
Change the flowers
Add stripe wall paper
Add a shadow
Test
Before making such a huge change, I tested out what the updates might look like in Figma (an image editing tool).
Boom!
I feel like this came together.
The psychological implications of the last edits made are what make the picture for me.
Initial Judgement:
Picture Making Craft:
I’m feeling pretty good about my handling the egg tempera. There are always new roads one can go down, so the future is limitless. For right now though and for the…Design Composition:
I like this. I reacted to a part of a picture I had completed. In my eye,Concept/Brand:
I like the directness of ELGIN. As with many commercial products today, the brand often becomes more important than the object itself.Concept/Commodity:
Concept/Psychology:
The psychological impact that unfolded with the introduction of the final compositional elements was initially unintended, but became the most successful aspect of this picture in my mind. I feel like I crossed a threshold with this painting and that in the future, I want to strive towards more obvious yet obscure symbolism.
Other artists doing similar things:
While working on this piece, I started to notice other artists who had done similar painting/flower motifs. Here are a few that I saw.
Balzac and Flowers by Elizabeth Peyton 2008
I like this work because…
For the images below: I recommend clicking on one of the images, then using the (forward/backward) buttons to scroll through them.
Other Things:
I’m sharing this film on Steve Jobs because I was fascinated by the way the reviewer, Roberts structured the review. How he did it is kind of what I am after with each one of these picture/posts that I’m writing up (a lot of info jumbled together to form a larger story). Its not about the subject matter here for me, its how Roberts just looks at the two films as part of a larger discourse on how films are made well.