After hours of playing with images and working with more and more complicated compositions, I realized that I was sucking the emotional content out of the images by making them far too cerebral. While looking for images that were more couture-related, I came across this iconic image of Elizabeth Taylor, and was immediately reminded of the now even-more iconic interpretation by Andy Warhol (this is the painting that Hugh Grant sold for $zillions a couple years ago). Because Warhol's work shares many of the same concerns as my work, I loved the idea of creating my own translation of the original image. I have chosen to do two paintings, each derived from a different fragment of the original image. After making my ink prints of these fragments and photographing each print repeatedly over a few hours, I combined the various versions into one image. But the compositions are simple - much simpler than anything I've painted in quite some time. I think they have a dreamy quality that I've been wanting in my work but haven't achieved so far. (Sorry - I'm not going to post my composed images until they're painted.)

It's made me rethink the idea that an excess of detail can seduce the viewer to look longer. With all the visual excess we face everyday, I wonder if painting would do better to exploit its stillness rather than fight against it. Painting can seduce the viewer with a type of image that offers a quieter source of contemplation rather than yet another visual bombardment. The abstract painter David Reed disagrees, arguing: "Feelings start with motion. Seeing films and TV make this necessary. I don't think we can go back to a notion of stillness or balance in painting and the kind of contemplation this implies." (David Ryan, Talking Painting: Dialogues with Twelve Contemporary Abstract Painters, p. 204). I'm not sure yet whether I disagree with this statement now (even though I relied on it in support of my thesis), or whether the concept of motion is more complex than his statement perhaps implies. Reed works with fragmentation in his work, but the fragmentation is quite limited. Perhaps the juxtaposition of two fragments implies enough motion to excite the contemporary eye.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens when I translate it all into paint.