This painting from 1999 is made with oil colors on a chalk ground on a wood panel. There are interesting aspects to this picture that make me want to take another look at it.
I like the mood that the colors and rhythms of the landscape give in contrast to the pale woman.
The rhythms of the grass and the receding landscape, the whites of the clouds, each sets up its own system. The woman in contrast has a simple rhythm of points — her nipples mirror her eyes. She is still and silent, but the landscape seems to reflect the texture of her thoughts and feelings — this is how I see it. The sharp edges and mellow forms are part of this texture.
All the oddness of the painting holds together because of its “internal coherence”, to borrow Arthur‘s expression.
I think that taking a careful look at older work is important because along the way I sometimes loose site of the things I did before, perhaps because I didn’t appreciate them earlier. Have you ever “rediscovered” an older work of your own, finding something in it you never saw before?
Karl:
Your figure wears the background landforms like a cape. They are still attached to her even as they reach the horizon and prepare to ascend and morph into cloud forms. To me this adds a poignant quality as she seems so tender and disengaged from the geological role that she assumes. There is also the jump in scale: there is no visual indication as such that she is a giantess, yet the mantle, be it ever so large, remains, for its relative size, wearable. Or she might be stepping out of the earth as Botticelli with his clam.
I need to come back to this later as I was a bit busytoday, but I must add that it is good to see a painting here…
Karl,
Do you have a website of your works?
Karl,
I’m not sure how recent were the other paintings and drawings you’ve shown us, but I’m amazed how similar they are to this older one. That’s the same reaction I had on re-discovering one of my own earlier photographs (post here). This makes it interesting to pick out small changes in technique or affect and ask yourself how you respond to the difference, and whether you want to keep going in the direction of that change. Just as an overall impression, I personally like the newer stuff better.
Looking at older works can often be a sudden confrontation for me. I often feel confused or even sad about finding something interesting that I had forgotten about. So far I never seem to get a grip on the process of creating and learning. It is like I make good works and bad works without learning as much as I could from both of them. They happen.
Whenever I find an interesting old work I feel I should have continued or incorporated the good parts of it. As long as I don’t focus on a subject or style and monitor the process it is hard to notice a gain of sensitivity or ability.
“her nipples mirror her eyes.” Yes, they do seem to follow you wherever you go…