With what felt like a mini-breakthrough yesterday, today I am faced with so many options for what to do next, I'm a little overwhelmed. While I am currently in love with the new images I photographed yesterday, and I still believe it would be interesting to keep these photographs as distinct works and not just source images, I'm not sure what my next move is. How do I decide which one to paint? And once I paint an image, is the photographed version obsolete, redundant, or complimentary? Once I paint it, should I exclude the photographed image as a distinct work? Perhaps I won't know the answers to these questions until I paint one and see.
I find myself conflicted in developing this new work. Since my thesis, my inquiries have been focused on exploring the life of the image, and I have chosen images that have an extravagant and frankly, pretty feminine sensibility. Until this year, I never painted the figure, and considered myself an exclusively abstract painter. But now that I have had the thrill of painting an image that looks back at me, I have become obsessed with the painted face. The subtleties of expression, the implications of distortion, the confrontation of a painted stare - it's endlessly fascinating. There are artists such as photographer Thomas Ruff and painter Chuck Close who use the portrait as a means to explore different aspects of the image, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities of having my work reference the ideas and strategies of such artists. However, there's also the baroque, ornate sensibility that I have striven for in my choice of images so far that reference a sensual excess as well as question the contemporary life of the historical. Could I really set aside the frills, ruffles, ribbons and crinoline for the simple elegance of the human face? Dresses are just so much fun to paint! And then I also wonder whether working with multiple images begins to distract from the larger issue at hand, ie. the complex life of an image, a single image. Perhaps taking one image and pushing as many different translations between media as possible is a more rigorous and interesting approach.
So in the immediate future, I have to decide:
a) Multiple Images - Portraiture;
b) Multiple Images - Sensual Excess/Historical; or
c) Single Image.
Which approach is best to push my ideas forward at this stage? I need to make a decision soon - blank canvases await!!!!
I find myself conflicted in developing this new work. Since my thesis, my inquiries have been focused on exploring the life of the image, and I have chosen images that have an extravagant and frankly, pretty feminine sensibility. Until this year, I never painted the figure, and considered myself an exclusively abstract painter. But now that I have had the thrill of painting an image that looks back at me, I have become obsessed with the painted face. The subtleties of expression, the implications of distortion, the confrontation of a painted stare - it's endlessly fascinating. There are artists such as photographer Thomas Ruff and painter Chuck Close who use the portrait as a means to explore different aspects of the image, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities of having my work reference the ideas and strategies of such artists. However, there's also the baroque, ornate sensibility that I have striven for in my choice of images so far that reference a sensual excess as well as question the contemporary life of the historical. Could I really set aside the frills, ruffles, ribbons and crinoline for the simple elegance of the human face? Dresses are just so much fun to paint! And then I also wonder whether working with multiple images begins to distract from the larger issue at hand, ie. the complex life of an image, a single image. Perhaps taking one image and pushing as many different translations between media as possible is a more rigorous and interesting approach.
So in the immediate future, I have to decide:
a) Multiple Images - Portraiture;
b) Multiple Images - Sensual Excess/Historical; or
c) Single Image.
Which approach is best to push my ideas forward at this stage? I need to make a decision soon - blank canvases await!!!!