Studio Journal

My studio is essentially the only place i have to paint and just get to work creating my art. As a Painting and Drawing Concentration I've learned the importance of gesture and mark making when handling charcoal and paints. Now i am trying to apply it to my work. i reference many artists in my work to engage in a dialogue with them. These artists include Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse, David Park, Max Beckmann, Peter Paul Rubens, etc.

 Paintings by David Park,
David Park is known from the Bay Figurative School.
i was interested mostly in his application of paint and his less is more approach to painting details. His choice of colors and variety and gesture of his strokes also greatly influenced me early on in this semester.

 Self Portrait by Max Beckmann
the dialogue I try to keep with Beckmann resides mostly in his ability to get very precise and exact moments in time. The expression in this self portrait is not cliche in a way that is influenced by a movie or a book, but it looks very natural. His application of paint was again very influential, but it is  that exact moment, the preciseness of his expression that currently influences my work. I now try to capture more of a narrative in my pieces, making both the figure and his or her setting important.

Picasso is perhaps the most influential modern artist of our time and that fact does not escape me. For Painting III, our professor had us reading "Working Space" by Frank Stella. One chapter was dedicated to Picasso and his move away from Cubism to more figurative work. This chapter really spoke to me in defining the figure and finding the importance of the setting in which the figure resides, a point i started to clarify when referencing Beckmann. My professor also had me look at how large the hands and feet are in the figurative work Picasso did at this time (Classicism). it was a comment on how my early works usually avoided or depicted hands and feet too small.

Finally I present a piece by Peter Paul Rubens. it is a drawing which reminds me very much of classical Greek Art. The reason i present this piece is because the gesture and figure he creates are perhaps my biggest influence and why i paint the figure, and how i paint them. I took a Drawing II class last semester and I was taught all about the importance of the gesture and action of the moving figure. It was perhaps the beginnings for my paintings this semester and as i present my work (following) you will hopefully be able to see the progression of the work from Rubens, to Park, to Beckamnn, and Picasso.

 All the Following Work will be my own and will reflect on the above influences and the direction I am going.
This painted nude is my reaction and my dialogue with Rubens. However, it is my reaction to his drawings, not paintings. This may explain my resistance to a real setting as opposed to an ambiguous, meaningless space. I was more concerned with my own gesture and the depiction of the figure than the setting and narrative. I used the figure as a vehicle for the way i wanted to paint and did not give the subject matter a second thought.

The same can also be said of this painting albeit it is much more abstracted and much more about the gesture than before. in This painting is was more influenced by David Park's application of paint and his less is more approach. so while many people have told me the colors and action are visually stimulating, the story and narrative still suffer.

 The convex back of this subject really goes back to classical Greek art (Lysippos). It is meant to maintain a dialogue between myself and Classical Greek sculptures and Rubens again, but this time it begins to place the figure in a setting. The setting unfortunately is very "art school, nude figure study" which again is an uninteresting topic. It is a topic that seems more forced and done many times before.

And so I moved on from the nude figure/art school idea and wanted to get that precise moment that Beckmann and  Picasso made look so easy. This is a small painting i did of a friend in a social scene. i used my camera as a sketchbook and really tried to capture the setting of the figure and the importance of her interaction with the objects and background. I feel this is a much more interesting narrative than the previous pieces.

 This piece is more of an experiment. It is derived from an old drawing but it is painted in a way to stay loose and be more creative. Matisse always used fabrics and patterns and bright, straight from the tube paints. This painting is also influenced by Picasso's use of pattern, his Classicsm period, and the outline he sometimes uses.

Finally, my most recent studio work combines the ideas of exact moments, precise expressions, the importance of setting, the application of paint, and a new subject i am exploring; light.  As i continue to paint (which i do a lot of) i continue to learn new things. The studio thus far has been a huge blessing and asset. my next challenge is trying to control the way i paint for each object. For example the figure in this painting is painted just as gesturally as the background. As i learn i will resolve each issue and create stronger and stronger work.