Software is the mind, hardware is the body.

Yes, its the mind-body problem yet again(mind-body), Wait! didn't Descartes figure all that out??? I am doing a series of pieces based on this perennial philosophical issue. I need to send out some emails to various cognitive scientists and philosophers to ask their opinions about representing this visually. I think that will make some cool interactions and interesting stuff for  for people to read about in conjunction with the paintings. Here is one called software. The child is breaking apart old hard-drives for scrap, and the woman is having her head analyzed by an electric phrenology machine.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology   

Online Prints for sale

http://www.5piecesgallery.com/

Cool Swiss gallery selling prints of my work online. Giclee prints, $70.00 archival paper. Check it out!

curious headgear

 New piece for the Affordable Art Fair

I've got one word for your son, plastic

Happy Holidays all!I am working on many shows and have a very full year ahead of me, including a show in London in April, Its at Rook and Raven Gallery in Soho. http://www.rookandraven.co.uk/  I have two paintings in Process for the Affordable art fair in January. They are both of figures under plastic sheets. I think all the symbolism is pretty clear: commodity, packaging, layers of ego, we are suffocating under the weight of our consumer culture,etc. Mostly I am interested in the challenge and beauty of painting figures under transparent material. There is blurring and sharpness, surface and reflection, cast shadows, interesting shapes. Its in the grand tradition of drapied figures that goes back to the Greeks but using a modern material. Here are a couple in process.

 Sorry I have not been posting! I will keep it up and add new work once a week or more, promise. Be kind to all you meet on your journey, its all we really have.

Add a little black to all your colors

I am having a little bit of a meltdown. Some combination of the seasonal changes, impending holiday stress, and the huge acres of canvas I have committed to paint for upcoming shows has given me pretty awful anxiety attacks. I am working right through them but it feels pretty grim here in my studio. I don't understand why they happen or how to get over this, but I am still working and that is enough for now.

 I had an amazing photo shoot a month or so ago and am starting to use the photos in this painting.

 

 I then make a black and white scale mock-up to see how it will look full-size, and to use for tracing the image onto canvas.

Then I transfer the drawing.
 

I am adding a little black to all my colors, to grey them a bit, to unify them, and because I am so fucking depressed these days.

Lots of looseness at this stage, just sploshing paint and blocking in shapes.

 

Now I am starting to paint the figures and its really fucking hard as always. It gets better when the figures have more going on in them, but for now I get pretty frustrated easily. I guess a lot of that is my current 

state of enervation. It will pass soon. I just want to be quiet and peaceful and not bother anyone and paint. Is that too much to fucking ask for?

 

Whistler's mother and the girl with the pearl earring.

I decided to increase the complexity around the central figure, so I added some more traditional painting references (see title of blog). I also changed the painting Pollack is standing on to a wall. He is painting over a void, almost pulling the red paint out of the depths. The girl was initially painted very sharp and crisp but was distracting from Pollock, so I attacked the wet paint and motion blurred her head. The lettering is some crazy graffiti font. I have to finish this this week! Details, glazing, rendering.

Commission

I have been doing commissions lately. I will show a bit of the process in this blog.

1. Initial contact. Gallery contacted me and informed me that a client would be interested in me developing a painting from a specific photo. Chilean riot police covered with paint from protesters.

 2. I develop a possible composition in Photoshop and send to the client.

3. The Idea was that Jackson Pollack is splashing paint and that the riot police are protecting aspects of traditional painting: Still-life, landscape, etc.

4. Idea is OK'd!

5. Drawing transferred and painting begun.

6. Closeup!