Hello from Paris: Happy New Year

01 January 2010

Happy New Year

Hi! Happy New Year! My apologies for the radio silence. I hope all have enjoyed a happy holiday. I have- I flew back to the states for two weeks to visit friends and family. I am now back in Paris, ready to get to work. Once I have some materials I'll be starting two large paintings. Finally the Centre Pompidou is no longer on strike, so I'll get to see Paris' modern art collection.

Some recent paintings, made and seen

Window, oil on canvas, something like 32x36"
Comes from my old appartment in Brooklyn. A literal reading: the light coming through the window in the morning, in summer. What I'm interested in pushing: reduction to squares/shapes; "void"/field of color (green), especially within a pictoral image; plants taking over; disintegration of image.
It's more or less done, though I want to make the grey a little thicker and richer. This probably wouldn't show in a picture, anyway. :- / The new paintings I'm starting should be descendents of this: semi-abstracted interiors, loving geometric shapes but not necessarily hard-edged, thinking about perspective, invite lines/colors to have a life of their own.

Expensive Chair and Kate Moss and Nightorchids, each about 12x14" and preferred seen as diptich.

Little paintings, in which I'm thinking about scale, perspective, and creating moods.

There's a few more in progress, but I'll wait on them, save the aforementioned Two Girls Brushing Their Hair:

which seems particularly obnoxious to photograph:

This is the blue color from Old Holland, which is over yellow and so looks even more vibrant. ("Scheveningen Blue Light")

Oh, and the girl on the right does not have zombie arms, it's just not painted yet!
This picture has a long and troubled history, so I'll be glad to be done with it.

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There's several artists I have on the brain:
Peter Doig