New Painting: Reflections 2009 — I’ll start 2010 with good intentions to post here more often. Despite my best efforts I was unable to keep a consistent flow of ideas in 2009.
Perhaps this painting is an appropriate image to start with. Reflections 2009 is a piece I struggled with over the summer and fall.
It began as an anthropological examination of what you might find if you took a slice of the earth at the horizon line. I started out with newspaper pages attached to the board with several coats of gel medium. I gradually built up layers of paint, both washes and opaque colour. During different epochs found objects were attached to the board, then later removed leaving behind remnants of their presences. Sections were scraped down to the original board. More colour and texture were added.
The breakthrough came when things got turned upside down — the bottom became the top and the top was transformed from sky to shimmery echo of the textured other two-thirds.
In the end it is a much darker piece than I anticipated, but only now, after emerging for a tumultuous year, I recongize this is a more satisfiying representation of the my original intention.
Visually Speaking 
Mmm… for me, the bottom is a shimmery echo of the top, like the surface of dark water. Maybe it depends upon which side of the looking glass you’re on.
You’re right Mark.
I guess I wasn’t very clear about things getting turned upside down. The bottom third — the shimmery echo — was the original the top of the piece. The painting wasn’t really working for me until I turned it upside down!
I hope I haven’t confused things even more.
Great hearing from you, thanks for reading and commenting.
So you are an artist. Good for you!
Your painting looks pretty darn good to me but I have to admit that I don’t always see the things others do in a work of art, but I know what is visually appealing to me and this certainly is! Thanks for sharing it