Metamorphosis Through Simplification

Manet said, “90% of painting is without a brush in your hand”. Living with a painting over time provides access to revelation. John Ruskin advised artists to never attempt to finish a painting by tidying up or fixing. That removes the sense of catharsis, the release of feeling, the pleasures of gesture, and the impression of spontaneous discovery. George Inness noted, painting is a process of inspired beginnings, nothing else. To proceed with a painting is like any other creative endeavor; do not impose your preconceived and therefore, prejudiced expectations rather, follow your experiment.  See where the trial and error system takes you. Wait for a new conjecture, a new epiphany, before you begin to work again on your painting. These insights cannot be forced. The muse will not visit you because you are impatient or pressed for time. Slow critical analysis of your work will reveal new possibilities. Here are some examples of how I changed the direction, identity, even the content of a painting through simplification, further unification, and pursuing a mantra not unlike Georgia O’Keeffe’s ” to fill a page beautifully.” I would add, “and with coherence and ambiguity.” In my first example, I waited over a year for the painting to offer me another direction. I was not happy with it. It felt awkard. I wondered how I might destroy it to see it reborn. You can see the color and design have both changed. The painting became simpler and more ambiguous in its revised state ( second example)  I applied a combination of ultramarine blue glaze and semi-opaque glazes of azure blue and white, and carmine lake and white .  Then I removed paint selectively to rediscover a new design, a new image.  In the next example ( examples 3, 4,and 5) at first I proceeded to complicate the texture and information. Finally, in the last stage which came after six months of gestation, I began the reduction process by eliminating much of my earlier visual noise.  I thought the painting had too much vertical activity and reduced that.   In the next metamorphosis I added to the complication of surface as a unifying strategy by adding three new levels of glazes working up from the bottom of the picture. The glazes  move from darker and bluer up to  lighter and pinker.(examples 6 and 7)  My last entry began as an experiment in linear perspective horizontal compression. The game of perspective distortion overwhelmed the image.  I needed to reorganize the experience with an occluding atmosphere which would soften and camouflage the overly linear and pronounced shapes.  This last image can be seen with other of my Santa Fe works at an exhibit at the Arroyo Gallery in Santa Fe which opens in mid September.