22 August 2017

What they saw next was true

Fragile Planets

I have a type of very focussed multiple attention span in the studio.  Lately I've been engaged with three different but connected streams of work: Large oil paintings, small acrylic paintings, and poured-paint paintings.  All exploring circles, ellipses, arced lines and shapes.

I've begun making some paintings based on the small stitched pieces of my recent Fragile Planets installation.  Fragile Planets received a very enthusiastic response from gallery-goers, and then it sort of went underground for a bit.  Now it is resurfacing in a further incarnation.  

What they saw next was true

Above: stitched canvas 16x16"

Below: detail bits of three finished acrylic paintings

What they saw next was true

What they saw next was true

What they saw next was true

The leftover acrylic paint is not wasted!  No, it is more fun and productive to pour leftover paint onto pieces of canvas.  Sometimes the canvas is cut fresh from the roll, other times I pour the leftover paint on top of old paintings that had never made it to being stretched.

verna vogel paint pour to create ground on canvas
It is summer and warm, so I do this outdoors.
Then I play with my shadow.

verna vogel paint pour to create ground

It has been mentioned to me that the details of these poured grounds/paintings could make paintings in and of themselves.  Perhaps I will go there in future, and perhaps not.

verna vogel acrylic painting detail

verna vogel acrylic painting detail

Once in awhile, with just a few tweaks a finished painting emerges from the layers of pours.  When that happens I get excited.  Then I have to restrain myself from trying to make more of my pours into finished paintings, because this type of painting has to feel particularly effortless in order to be true.

What they saw next was true

It can be the most difficult thing in the world to do something effortlessly and well.  It is a type of freedom that requires great and concentrated focus, often flying in the face of an innate human urge to define, classify, produce calibrated results.

What they saw next was true

And there you have the fundamental discipline of being an artist.