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Hello everyone! Yes, I know that you assumed I had either died or (more likely) become predictably lazy and decided spend my summer working on my tan and avoiding the scornful glares of the subjects in my unfinished portraits. Good News! I am still alive!
During the last few months, I have been traveling extensively through Europe, stopping for a minute in Northern Africa and Asia. This may seem highly impulsive and extravagant to you, but trust me, it was imperative to recovering my sanity. In order to accurately explain the reasons for hightailing it out of the states, I've decided to publish the last blog which I wrote, on April 30, which details everything that I was going through at the time.
I wasn't going to publish it ever, but I've decided to momentarily ignore the advice of close friends not to publish because I feel like maybe, somewhere, someone might be able to relate and possibly gain, at the very least, a sense of camaraderie from my story.
Still, if you are scrolling down right now, unable to find a post from April 30th, it is because I have changed my mind and removed it from my blog. And in that case, my apologies.
Travelling was exactly what the doctor ordered. In the time preceding my departure, I was losing my mind. I had become so obsessed with my work and becoming a "master", that I didn't realize what a miserable bitch I was becoming. Spending twelve hours a day behind a canvas, completely cut off from the rest of the world would turn anyoneinto a misanthropist. (see: Van Gogh, Kahlo, Kirchner)
More than this, my art was suffering. Instead of painting what was inspiring me, I was just going through the motions of creation. I was painting not because I w
anted to, but because I had to. Of course, I always feel this way; that creating art is not something that I want to do, but the only thing I really can do and therefore the one thing I must do. Still, regardless of the reasons I worked, the work I was making in April was not about what inspired me, but rather what disturbed and distressed me. Had I not stopped for a short sabatical, I'm sure that I would be creating art the explored sexual vulnerability and trying to capture the depravity that exudes from the work of Egon Schiele.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, then you know how I've always been obsessed with color. When I was in Cologne, Germany, attempting (unsuccessfully) to stalk Gerhard Richter, I visited the window he created for the Catheral in Cologne. I spent about two hours gazing at it, completely absorbed by the way the colors played with each other to create something otherworldly. I love the deconstruction of painting, and this work embodies it.(It was based on his painting "4096 Colors" (see pic) which sold for over three million US dollars) Also it used an old, old medium (stained glass) to represent something completely new, pixelized color.
Anyway, I want to get back to creating art that in inspirational and beautiful to me from its inception. I've come to the conclusion that if I'm making art that I'm not excited about, it will be obvious to the viewer that it is not sincere. It will be missing the edge that makes some of my earlier works so successful.
Now, I'm focusing on color, light, distortion regardless of people's criticisms that it is not as representational as my figures or my bonsai tree. As an artist, you are really damned if you do and damned if you don't. Not matter what style I paint in, someone, somewhere will always have a problem with it. Either its too realistic, too photographic, shallow, not representational enough, cartoony, too abstract, too dark, or too loud.
I've been back one week and I've almost finished my next painting. It is a picture which depicts cars driving on a rainy street in London. It is my hope that the finished product will be able to capture a sense of the ethereal and the nostalgic simultaneously.
Here is how far I've gotten:
Now, I'm going to continue to paint, but I'm going to leave you with a few highlights from my trip:
1. Being inducted into the culture of drinking your problems away in London, England
2. Enjoying a plethora of different beers and waffles in Bruges
3. Stalking Gerhard Richter from afar in Cologne
4. Getting arrested in Berlin
5. Hanging out with a crazy Belgian in Prague for four days
6. Going to "Thriller Night" (Michael Jackson Night) on a boat in Budapest and riding around the city on a bike for several days.
7. Riding bikes through Tuscany and stumbling upon abandoned villas and farmhouses
8. Hanging out at an Italian campsite outside of Rome with a crazy feminist from Wisconsin.
9. Getting stuck in Paris and sleeping in a train station for two nights
10. Morroco. The entire fucking country. Meeting awesome people there who will hopefully remain lifelong friends.
11. Turkey...Sitting in Europe and looking at Asia.
Thats the super condensed version, which of course leaves out the juiciest bits. I'm writing it all down before I forget, and its about sixty pages so far...Maybe I'll start another blog for that. Anyway, thats neither here nor there.
Until tomorrow, happy painting everyone.
During the last few months, I have been traveling extensively through Europe, stopping for a minute in Northern Africa and Asia. This may seem highly impulsive and extravagant to you, but trust me, it was imperative to recovering my sanity. In order to accurately explain the reasons for hightailing it out of the states, I've decided to publish the last blog which I wrote, on April 30, which details everything that I was going through at the time.
I wasn't going to publish it ever, but I've decided to momentarily ignore the advice of close friends not to publish because I feel like maybe, somewhere, someone might be able to relate and possibly gain, at the very least, a sense of camaraderie from my story.
Still, if you are scrolling down right now, unable to find a post from April 30th, it is because I have changed my mind and removed it from my blog. And in that case, my apologies.
Travelling was exactly what the doctor ordered. In the time preceding my departure, I was losing my mind. I had become so obsessed with my work and becoming a "master", that I didn't realize what a miserable bitch I was becoming. Spending twelve hours a day behind a canvas, completely cut off from the rest of the world would turn anyoneinto a misanthropist. (see: Van Gogh, Kahlo, Kirchner)
More than this, my art was suffering. Instead of painting what was inspiring me, I was just going through the motions of creation. I was painting not because I w
anted to, but because I had to. Of course, I always feel this way; that creating art is not something that I want to do, but the only thing I really can do and therefore the one thing I must do. Still, regardless of the reasons I worked, the work I was making in April was not about what inspired me, but rather what disturbed and distressed me. Had I not stopped for a short sabatical, I'm sure that I would be creating art the explored sexual vulnerability and trying to capture the depravity that exudes from the work of Egon Schiele.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, then you know how I've always been obsessed with color. When I was in Cologne, Germany, attempting (unsuccessfully) to stalk Gerhard Richter, I visited the window he created for the Catheral in Cologne. I spent about two hours gazing at it, completely absorbed by the way the colors played with each other to create something otherworldly. I love the deconstruction of painting, and this work embodies it.(It was based on his painting "4096 Colors" (see pic) which sold for over three million US dollars) Also it used an old, old medium (stained glass) to represent something completely new, pixelized color.
Anyway, I want to get back to creating art that in inspirational and beautiful to me from its inception. I've come to the conclusion that if I'm making art that I'm not excited about, it will be obvious to the viewer that it is not sincere. It will be missing the edge that makes some of my earlier works so successful.
Now, I'm focusing on color, light, distortion regardless of people's criticisms that it is not as representational as my figures or my bonsai tree. As an artist, you are really damned if you do and damned if you don't. Not matter what style I paint in, someone, somewhere will always have a problem with it. Either its too realistic, too photographic, shallow, not representational enough, cartoony, too abstract, too dark, or too loud.
I've been back one week and I've almost finished my next painting. It is a picture which depicts cars driving on a rainy street in London. It is my hope that the finished product will be able to capture a sense of the ethereal and the nostalgic simultaneously.
Here is how far I've gotten:
Now, I'm going to continue to paint, but I'm going to leave you with a few highlights from my trip:
1. Being inducted into the culture of drinking your problems away in London, England
2. Enjoying a plethora of different beers and waffles in Bruges
3. Stalking Gerhard Richter from afar in Cologne
4. Getting arrested in Berlin
5. Hanging out with a crazy Belgian in Prague for four days
6. Going to "Thriller Night" (Michael Jackson Night) on a boat in Budapest and riding around the city on a bike for several days.
7. Riding bikes through Tuscany and stumbling upon abandoned villas and farmhouses
8. Hanging out at an Italian campsite outside of Rome with a crazy feminist from Wisconsin.
9. Getting stuck in Paris and sleeping in a train station for two nights
10. Morroco. The entire fucking country. Meeting awesome people there who will hopefully remain lifelong friends.
11. Turkey...Sitting in Europe and looking at Asia.
Thats the super condensed version, which of course leaves out the juiciest bits. I'm writing it all down before I forget, and its about sixty pages so far...Maybe I'll start another blog for that. Anyway, thats neither here nor there.
Until tomorrow, happy painting everyone.
