Oil Portraits With Collage
This Series was part of the 50 paintings in 50 weeks assignment I gave myself for my 50th birthday. https://50paintings50weeks.wordpress.com I began using source photos of models and friends I had photographed for the portraits in these works. Once I had exhausted my source material supply file I was lamenting the need to find new people to photograph – and then suddenly I realized that source material was right in front of me all the time. The profiles I was seeing on social media and dating sites were loaded with psychologically charged selfies that I quickly collected and began to paint. The overwhelming quantity and endless supply reflects our contemporary world filled with easy access, endless choices, and disposable everything.
In this particular series, in these specific art pieces, I am exploring the tension and interplay between basic dualities: calculated precision and intuitive spontaneity, realism and abstraction, order and chaos. I see these as metaphors for life, collective cultural constructs, perception, and as personal iconography. My work is autobiographical and yet I strive to find the connection to universal human experience.
Figurative realism and portraiture are the most effective ways for me to address the topics that interest me: cultural constructs of male sexual identity development, i.e. “becoming a man” and the current shifts in attitudes towards gay people. These portraits include elements that distinguish them from traditional oil portraiture while also acknowledging a direct connection to the tradition. The language I developed in the paint quality is such that thick painterly brushwork, thin scrubbed out areas, drips, runs and splashes work together to at once create a believable illusion of reality and deny it. There is no attempt to hide the materials, smooth out brush strokes, or make it photo-real. It will always be paint on the surface. Yet in the viewer’s mind the marks and colors combine to become “object”, “person”, or “reality”.
I find this to be an excellent metaphor of how we develop beliefs, individually and collectively as a culture.
Additionally the collage elements are selected from categories: maps, diagrams, mechanical illustrations, biological and botanical depictions, and gender role stereotypes found in vintage World Book Encyclopedia and other sources. Collage elements are a combination of recognizable images, cut out negative spaces where images were removed, and unrecognizable, mysterious visual textures and patterns. These elements collide with the oil portraits to continue the disruption of tradition, and invent a new narrative.
The studio practice is my art. The process and ritual of art making – just showing up and doing the work – carries equal weight to the resulting art object. And yet, the resulting object is my art. In some ways the art object is the residue of the process, the evidence of a life ritual. I seek to challenge myself with tasks requiring a high degree of skill and commitment because it is satisfying. I seek to make excellent art.
I found a resonating spiritual connection to “Finding Flow” by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi:
Finding Flow contends that we often walk through our days unaware and out of touch with our emotional lives. Our inattention makes us constantly bounce between two extremes: during much of the day we live filled with the anxiety and pressures of our work and obligations, while during our leisure moments, we tend to live in passive boredom. The key, according to Csikszentmihalyi, is to challenge ourselves with tasks requiring a high degree of skill and commitment. Instead of watching television, play the piano. Transform a routine task by taking a different approach. In short, learn the joy of complete engagement.