While the US was exploding this week, I laid down my brushes on It's A Precious Commodity that Keeps You on Your Feet. Tempted to paint the work "to details" (meaning to get really tight, refined, smooth, acceptable, or "good"*)- is never my intent, so I had to stop. Portraits and figurative works can be many things, expressed in many ways. There are the smooth, slick pieces that dazzle you into a photographic frenzy. Works that elevate the luscious thickness of linseed oil and pigment to create tension between the formal properties of paint and the form (I'm thinking of Lucien Freud here; in this case, the form always wins as we are drawn into his figuration.) Or aggressive works that slash the sitter with each energized brush stroke (I'm thinking of de Kooning and his Women). Of course, I am none of these historical painting icons, nor am I a man.
Yet, as I sit here with my coffee in a studio loaded with painted women watching me and books about women on my shelves, I feel a certain heaviness.
My women are watching, I am watching, we are all watching.
I am old enough to have experienced my share of sexism, bigotry, and misogyny. I have lived through those moments of discrimination, thinking in unbelief, "Wait, this isn't right."
And now, well, I find myself thinking, "Wait, this isn't right."
Military spouses live in a state of unsettlement, with perpetual change just over the horizon. We reluctantly hold it together, play the resilience game, and forge ahead. We push aside dreams and careers- leaving friends and families. There is an emotional toll, which I explore and express in my work. There is a price to pay; listen to any spouse, and you will hear it. Yet, we do it for our spouse and our country.
But now, I feel this same unsettlement and uncertainty in the civilian world (albeit more pronounced). However, we are not enduring for the sake of betterment of our country.
It is interesting how these feelings escape into your canvas...
Back to the work and portraits. I never aim for the slick or aggressive but rather the expressive and historical. My work deals in layered sentiments that have found their way onto Arches oil paper. Oil paint and charcoal depict emotions that break through despite composed faces.
Two women lean into each other, watching. They stand under a harsh light with the bush ablaze behind them. Hot and vague, the shrubbery pushes into them. The women are coming apart; their flesh seems to be eroding- or maybe it was never whole to start with. As with all my work, I am obsessed with the layers that slowly build. I paint with the intent of allowing the past to remain present, even in small textures and lines, a palimpsest, if you will. However, here, it feels that the past pushes forward and through them. The harsh light above- the future- seemingly loaded with a new wave of bigotry and discrimination pushes back.
They lean into one another. Maybe this is all we have left, this precious commodity that keeps us on our feet...
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