Current Influence

Recently I was introduced the the art of Gerard Richter who I think is amazing. I saw a review of a documentary about him which will be shown at the Vancouver Film Festival this week. I like the layering, his use of materials, use of photographs and the fact that he's still painting in his late seventies. Good news for a late bloomer like myself.

Gerhard Richter Painting trailer from Kino Lorber on Vimeo.

Mirror Mirror Opening Reception

This Saturday, September 15th Reception and Artist Talk 6:30: artist talk 7:30-9:30 Reception.

It's exciting to be along side the artists in Scenes of Selves, Occasions for Ruses . I'm really looking forward to the artist talk.

Scenes of Selves, Occasion for Ruses
Dissolving the limits of the self and others through new forms of portraiture

In an era of status updates, photo sharing websites, and profile pictures, one's image and therefore one's identity presented to the world is more important, changeable and multi-dimensional than ever before. Scenes of Selves, Occasion for Ruses features artworks from 10 artists in a wide variety of media including drawing, painting, photography and video that explore the nature of self-identity at the beginning of the 21st century. (Surrey Art Gallery promo

Slippage,  2011.

MIRROR MIRROR: 

A JURIED EXHIBITION OF  

SELF-PORTRAITS 

I recently entered Slippage, a piece I painted last year into the Mirror, Mirror show put on by the Art Council of Surrey. This is my first venture into juried exhibitions. I thought it important that I take the risk to face my fear of rejection. I faced my fear but instead of rejection it was one of success. There were 60 submissions and 30 were accepted and I was one of them. The show runs from August 18th to November 18th. It is in conjunction with the Surrey Art Gallery exhibit, Selves, Occasions for Ruses. I am very excited to be showing a painting I did outside of school. I really feel like I've graduated.

Experiment with acrylics and gels

acrylic on canvas 6"x6"
Took this photo with my laptop camera software so not the best shot, a little shaky. The yellow is a curtain in the background, not part of the painting.

I wanted to do something quick so I drew the cone flower in charcoal over acrylic blues background.  then started painting. The charcoal made it fairly muddy so I added more light but I think it was too much. I think I washed out the variation in tones. I used the charcoal to begin with to give it that variation, sigh. Too much, too little, one day I hope to get it just right.

The gels are interesting. I used semi-gloss, gloss and sculpting gels over the paint rather than mixing it with the paint.

Update of Abstract

An update of the abstract which I'm now tentatively calling "Rebirth". 3' x 2' 6" oil on canvas

Close-ups of Sojourn piece

Finally took photos of the individual paintings in my last project in Narrative Painting, Sojourn.

after glaze

Below is how it looks after one layer of cadmium red glaze. The light is creating a hot spot distorting the colour. When it stops raining I'll take some more photos in the sunshine.

disjunctive narrative piece

Charcoal, ink drawing on brown paper and oil on canvas

This painting was inspired by a video still called Bulbs. It's approximately 2'x2.5' on board. It has one layer of cadmium red glaze and I'd like to add 2 or 3 more layers of glaze.

learning Ross Bleckner style

oil on canvas

2009 painting

Here are a few paintings I did in May/June 2009. Unfortunately the flash distorts them and I didn't get a straight on shot. I'll try again later and get a better image. The darker shot is closer to the real colour.

I used Ross Bleckner as a style for the first 3 paintings. The first 2 are canvas, 16"x20"

Little did I know it was going to take a very long time for the glaze to dry. Each painting still needs more layers of glaze so it's not the finished product.

macro view of grass over leaves

This painting is on canvas, 11"x14"

The image is from a photo I took at Derby Reach. it was done as a macro shot.

sky over France

This is Skyscape on canvas 3'x4'. The image is from a photo I took flying over farms outside of Paris. I manipulated it in photoshop to reduce colour (the darker area). It looks very surreal. Again it isn't straight on and the flash distorts the colour.

contemporary Gauguin

Painting based on Gauguin's Where do we come fromI did this in the 2008 fall semester. Gauguin's painting was utopian, wishing to go back to paradise. My painting is a contemporary comment on consumerism giving a false sense of well-being while the reality is we are trashing the earth. The family is a shallow image, much like catalogue persons who have no depth. Their god is the idol of low prices.

my nephew Braydon

a painting I did Fall 2008 of my great-nephew, Brayden