Business time - New Series

As none of you know, because it's barely mentioned here, I am a figure painter. For the winter I will be working out of my home in Lynn, MA until the spring semester at Emerson College in Boston, MA starts. For my current series, I have been focusing alot on geometry that has a certain, organic quality to its composition. I describe my paintings as a study of muscle countour using implied space created through the process of painting to show the model's implied movement. I will post of few pieces from the past months here's and elaborate on all of them.

" Rachel goes down in the 15th "

oil, pencil, and dirt on canvas

This painting was started without a preconceived idea, at the time I had been doing alot of studies and devoted alot of time in dissecting Euen Uglow's style, and the meaning behind it. I had been taught by Steve Mishol to make paintings that had a purpose, a reason for the paint to exist on the canvas. Everything I had been taught was very specific, my professor spent years doing color studies, seeing how a certain grey would look next to a certain blue, and so on. I had three pieces I worked on while struggling with Uglow. I was told to take his methods, and improve on them, to make them stronger. At first I thought to incorporate more levity when dealing with female models, showing curves and feminine features in a more curvelinear way than he did. It wasn't until this painting that I discovered how to take his idea and bring it to a new level. Anyways, back to the painting. I had only pregessoed canvas to work with, so I layed maybe 6 ft by 4.5 ft on the ground, and the model stand on it. I first did a analytic drawing, but was careful to include cross contour and to show the partitions in the muscle groups where the color would shift. As I would draw her I would get closer to the ground as I got closer to the model. This resulted in the model appearing to have a trunkated torso, and a head tilted up. I used the wear and dirt on the canvas to show an implied space, an idea of space, rather than simply do a background painting. There are lines that lead the viewer into the painting, that seem to push her back as if she will fall backward into the painting even more. I realized that by showing movement with the movement occuring, or implied movement, I was using the geometric mapping method in a whole new way. I called the piece " Rachel goes down in the 15th " as a nod to the fight I had been having with Uglow, the challenge of trying to produce something new that originated in his paintings. The title is also a nod to Rachel falling backward. For this series every painting has a name derived from boxing terminology.

" Even in the 14th "

oil, pencil, micron pen on canvas

This painting was my second real piece of work in the Uglow study. This was painted before " Rachel goes down in the 15th" . This study was done while I was trying to capture uglow's geometric shifting of color, the way he masterfully places one color next to another that seems like a perfect gradient shift. Obviously I had a ways to go, but if it wasn't for this painting I would have never had my revelation. There is no implied social statement in this painting as some have guessed, the model was an actualy model who wore make-up like this for a fashion show, her name is Maddie and she's a good friend of mine and a great model. The painting was named " Even in the 14th " because of the way it was stretched, a perfect square, a cube almost. I also considered it to be the step before I had my breakthrough with the Rachel painting, and since I named this painted after Rachel was done, I felt it was a nice touch.

" Maddie with the Technical Knockout "

oil, pencil, micron pen and dirt on canvas

This painting was done after the previously shown works. It added a new feature to my series, points of reference. Again I am showing muscle countour using implied space created through the process of painting to show the model's implied movement. The points of reference are tiny circles throughout the painting to remind myself where I shifted during the process. I turned throughout the canvas on the floor to give the illusion of Maddie turning. I am still not sure if the crammed space makes the painting suffer or not, while a nice wide horizontal space would be nice to let the painting breathe, I'm not sure it would serve as much of a purpose as Rachel because of the action of the model. This painting was much harder to do as far as the color scheme of the muscle's go, because the action was far more dynamic.

Well, that's it for now guys. The next post will be another story or something along those lines to remind people that a person created these, a person who is dirt broke right now. Hell, I like money. " You like sex and money? We should hang out. "

- Alex