Objets Etranges #2
THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
Because its part of a series that I was working on together at the same time, most of the text is going to be associated with Objets Etranges #1.
The idea for this series came from a few places.
A while back I did a series of drawings about sculptures in a park… Maquet drawings inspired by the drawings of Claus Oldenberg. (LINK). I had been wanting to do more like this.
I got to see the New Orleans sculpture garden. That place is great. Sculpture gardens are the best. One of my favorite memories is of walking around Pepsi headquareters outside of NYC and exploring this magnificent sculpture garden that they maintain. Its an experience a lot different than a museum because its a space that is also being used. The garden co-exists with this luxury office building. In the summer when I was there, I remember seeing people out having lunch in the garden wearing business suits… it was all too much for me. The huge artworks in a landscaped garden being used to provide an atmosphere for what I can pretend is stimulating commercial conversation. A perfect space that I want to emulate.
. I have long wanted to act as a curator for a city and work on large public monuments. So I had a desire to explore a fictional public sculpture garden. I would love to have the money at my disposal to become a monument building machine.
I was working on this huge oil abstract painting that I’m still in the middle of. Its kind of just the strange object only 1000’s times more and no nature. Its really just an exploration of the shapes that I got into here… only a lot more. I wanted to create something simpler… thus this direction.
I was also thinking about surrealism… I don’t like that term for this piece. There is too much association with the dada movement. I need to find something better. I think of this work as kind of fitting into the art that you would find in a Pink Floyd album cover. I wanted to create a space that evokes unease and dread.
While I was working on the piece, I was not sure what the environment would be. I knew I wanted trees and to evoke the outdoor landscape.
At first I was thinking this would be in a southern hemisphere jungle like space.
I went through a period where I was thinking that the immediate surrounding trees and bushes could be dead and in the distance you would see the lush greenery. I like thinking about this object as being foreign to our plane of existence and that its being there is like being made of plutonium, killing everything around it.
I then started to think it would be fun to push the mark making to show a differentiation between spaces, the space that is inside of this objects sphere of influence, all of the marks Im adding are additive, they are defining the object and the landscape immediately around the object. The brushmarks I’m adding in the background I’m adding to try to show a windstorm/bending of reality… like you the viewer are in a space with this object and then looking out at the world… that didn’t fully work because the size of my painting… but I was still trying to push the mark making differences between the object and the landscape.
While I am working on a piece like this, every mark is an exploration and a guide post. I’m not trying to be frivilous with what I’m throwing down. A mark usually indicates that I’m pushing a shape in one direction or another. I look at my work and I’m seeing all of the marks as small notes saying ‘this shape gets pushed here’, or ‘this ground is going this direction’. This piece is a puzzle that I’m both putting together and discovering at the same time. This is an important concept I think that a lot of people who paint eventually discover. I know in the past I would add marks without full meaning. I can look at other peoples paintings or my earlier work and its pretty obvious to me when the mark making and consideration has been invested in a work. . When I am working I find that I spend 90% of my time adding to a picture, and the marks are not good. and the picture sucks. and things go slow. Then there is the 10% of the time where everything just clicks and flows and the piece comes together. I’ve been hitting that 10% every day for the last half a year and I really feel good about things because of it. I know what I’m producing here is not what I’m fully capable of. I feel like I can get there.
I’ve been having a really hard time listening to pop music recently. My mind must be changing. I still think the Beatles were the height of any art movement in the 20th century. I’m blown away by how large of an impact they had on the cultural landscape. The impact they and the music industry had. I have a need to hear people exploring with sound in intended or unintended ways.
Stay Safe Weather Guy
Food Ration Guy
Train Guy
While I worked on this piece, I enjoyed listening to Philip Glass for the first time (Koyaanisqatsi). I’ve been getting into what is lumped under ‘post-rock’ music which can be a broad category. The kind of music I am enjoying is usually a couple of persons composing with a bent more towards classical music than jazz/rock/r&b. Its pretty interesting what has been composed in this area. Godspeed You Black Emperor,