Saturday, July 18, 2009

Latest Minor Diety

50" x 52", Oil on wood
I'm re-embracing the minor diety theme for these paintings. This one must monitor something like great aunts' crafts aesthetics. Everything was making too much sense, and then late last night I goofied it up. Not sure where it stands now, but I need to clear out the studio for a week or two for day job furniture painting.

This is probably the last such painting for a while. A new painting path opened up and I'm taking it....

8 comments:

Nomi Lubin said...

I really like this. That red is unreal. THOSE reds are unreal. Minor deity indeed.

Carla said...

In indirect light the reds read dark and dead (a nice ominous dead), and then with a spot, glow pretty well.

while our work looks different, I get that sensation of cellular memory when I view your collages. Often I have just made the same sort of circle on circle decisions, and have been thinking in similar ways, ie. layering, and ornmentation breaking up form, repetition and breaking from repetition.

Nomi Lubin said...

Interesting. Yes -- layering, ornamentation breaking up form, and repetition and breaking from repetition. There you go. That's all I do. You've just pulled the curtain away!

Carla said...

Well, that's not all you do. So much is outside of verbal description.

chris said...

'late last night i goofied it up. not sure where it stands now...'

wait, are you saying that this is the goofied-up stage, or that it now looks different than pictured? i'm rooting for like this, doing that "just a hair away from making sense, i'm pretty sure if i keep staring at it, then it will make sense" thing that works so well in these diety paintings. also, i agree with the person above complementing the color.

Carla said...

This is the goofied-up version, and I'm letting it "dry into being". These seem like a mess in person, but magically appear cohesive in photos. I think I'm working in a ridiculously small space and lose actual visual perspective. Also, one can get so caught up in a particular rigid visual logic...I'm setting this aside because to work further would require complete annhilation, and I'm going to do that metaphorically in the next group of paintings....

Steven LaRose said...

This seems like the classic end piece. The perfect painting to slam open doors while dialing in avenues of focus. Doesn't this always happen precisely when you can't work on paintings? I would say (because I like this painting) that you should hang it in your space while you work on your day job. Occasionally glance up at it.

My personal take (and we all know what that is worth) is that the geometric shaped canvas, as opposed to the biomorphic shaped one, is a nice tension.

And the imagery is fantastic in the way it follows all the universal trompe l'oeil rules, and yet feels personally unique. It is a great example of originality being defined as the recombination of familiar events.

Carla said...

Thanks Steven, I've been noticing exciting "avenues of focus" in these lately. There are passages that deserve to be entire paintings; they're more intimate and poetic than the broader formal gymnastics of these. I would like to go there.

I just realised that this is the first painting if this group, and now the last. I like the geometric format too, now that I've worked more with it.

The day job work involves spraying, and while I do use my kitchen as a wood shop, I can't bring myself to spray in there. too gross even for me. So I can't leave this painting up right now. I did just photograph a funny studio wars juxt. See next post.