Collage

I've been focusing my artistic efforts lately towards 2 upcoming shows each with a different media, painting and collage. I just finished the second collage piece (of 10 that I need to do by June) and I thought I'd write about it.

The setting is the bank of the Seine on New Year's eve. The picture above sets the tone and provided some of the physical inspiration. My collage pices are always mixed media, so some sections are painted with justapozed or intgrated collage elements to help round out the story. This piece sums up the obvious, New Year's night, but what I was trying to capture more than anything was the underlying mood. As amazing as the Paris trip was by: a) just being in Paris and b) seeing our best friends, there was an undertone of tension. Both couples were having some serious issues and yet as close as we all are, we kept those to ourselves. That's the essence of what I tried to communicate and I am excited about showing it. It'll just have to wait until June. No sneak previews!

Inspiration

I talk about travel an awful lot. Whether for work or for pleasure, it still shapes and inspires me. Maybe it's because just weeks old I was road tripping from Florida to NY? Maybe it's because my first passport was issued when I was 11 months old. I have inherited my dad's wanderlust (and am eternally grateful for that), so in reality it's probably just genetics.

What I have continually marveled at over my years of flying all over the place is the amazing contrast of colors, textures, patterns and surfaces. Whether its dark, rainy runways with light getting refracted every which way, the blocks of color created by the water treatment facilities in San Francisco bay, or the way that in Arizona the mountains end and give way to these massive round fields (I still dont know what they are). I've got a mental diary of years worth of these images and I've been waiting for them to manifest themselves in my work. That's exactly what's happening now. I just wrapped up 1 more painting last night and am completing the first series of 3.

Current Projects

I mentioned a couple of posts ago, that Marcus and I have 2 upcoming shows in NYC, one on May and one in June. The May show at GalleryFCB will be all paintings and the June show at Grounded will be all collage. Normally I like to have a mixture of new and old pieces at my shows, but these 2 shows will be of all new stuff. In order to build some level of anticipation as to what it is that we're working on, I wont be posting any new work here until May. If I do some work that is new, but not for the shows specifically, then I wont mind posting those. Although I wont likely be posting images for a while, I will be writing about what it is that I'm working on.

With that said, much of my painting work right now is still fairly dark in palette and also very atmospheric, with geometry to help bring things together. The themes are building on my constant fascination and inspiration of light, dark, space and flight. I have taken so many photographs lately that I am breaking down and drawing inspiration from, that I have more ideas than time to execute them. Good probelm to have I suppose.

On the collage side, when just in Paris I may have spent more time looking down at the ground than looking at the sites, all in search of great ephemera to incorporate into my work. I'm always in search of artifacts to either build stories around or to add context with. Marcus and I have also been spending time at the Poverty Barn looking for interesting things to incorporate into our work.

Overall, I would have to say that we're both on a good pace to generate about 25 total pieces (per person) and we continually push and inspire one another.

Paris...encore

It has been difficult being back in the US after being in Paris. It always is, but for some reason this time it's hitting me a bit harder than usual. Besides the fun and reconnecting with friends, I'm trying to creatively focus on all the great stuff that I found that I'll be incorporating into a series of collages that will be a part of my show in June. Marcus and I also made a trip to the thrift store on Sunday and found tons more great artifacts to work into our pieces.

The last several months I've been into incorporating my organic backgrounds with graphic elements (namely orchids) juxtapozed against them. Before we left for Paris I did a small painting as a gift to our dear friends Guillaume and Celine (this one).



I am getting really into adding more geometric shapes and textures for contrast.

I have 3 new paintings that I'm working on right now that are again inspired by flight and flowers, and I'm working all these elements together. None of them are complete, but I'll post them as they wrap up.