CUTTINGS
In December 2022 I started working on the concept of diptychs.
For me, a diptych is a painting consisting of one or two canvases and, in a sense, two spaces. Although they formed one work, there was always an uneasy relationship between the two surfaces. If you think about it, a diptych never had a center, or rather, it had two.
The way I approach a diptych is pretty straightforward (despite taking me several weeks to figure it out).
Flowering (diptych, oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 70 x 140 cm, 2022).
Each of the two canvases covered the entire width of the diptych, which meant I only painted half of each painting.
The relationship between the two parts continued into the subject, so that the diptych eventually became one painting.
The Dream (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2022-2023).
After months of painting with colored lines instead of surfaces, as I usually did, I reached a point where I had said all I had to say.
I returned to the silhouette-based surfaces but stuck to the concept of multi-panels, I wasn't done with that idea yet.
So I returned to what I named my colorfield paintings.
COLORFIELD DIPTYCHS
MIRRORED NARRATIVE
Things are what they seem.
Another way to work with double panels was to paint the same subject twice, one representational and one abstract.
For example, if it were a portrait, then so would the second canvas, just an abstract (pixelated?) version of it.
Double Portrait of C. (diptych, oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 40 x 60 cm, 2023).
I found that these diptychs work better the more distance between them.
SPLIT
Representation & Abstraction.
Working on two panels at the same time made it possible to represent the same reality in two completely different ways.
So the question was not so much what abstraction was, but what wasn't?
Next To The Red Pillar (diptych, oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 60 x 120 cm, 2023).
DIVIDING AN IMAGE
Another way to create a diptych was to divide one image (say a portrait) into two halves, one side representative and the other abstract.
The Swimming Lesson (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2023).
While I usually prefer large canvases, I've painted quite a few smaller ones over the last couple of years. The layout did not necessarily had to be vertical, it can also be horizontal.
Open Kimono, The Purple Sweater (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 40 x 60 cm, 2023).
CENSORSHIP OF THOUGHT
The Silence (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 120 cm, 2023).
At first glance, all these series seem to be about different forms of abstraction. And that's right.
The Red Dress (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 80 x 160 cm, 2023).
Film Blonde (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 80 x 180 cm, 2023).
But essentially it is about censorship. The censorship of meaning, style and subject.
Portrait of N. (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2023).
In short, the Censorship of thought.
Boy (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2023).
Timeline is a series in which one painting leads to another, as if traveling through time, starting with a queen and ending with a mummy.
THE LAST PORTRAIT
My mother passed away on 29.03.2023.
She was 92.
R.I.P. Mama (diptych, oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 40 x 60 cm, 2023).
THE FINAL CUT
Slices Of Life
In this series I crop an image with a canvas that is less than half wider than it is tall, leaving only part of the subject visible.
The Pavillion (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 100 x 200 cm, 2023).
The other panel is blank, unpainted, untouched. It's another way to divide an image.
The Warmest Season (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 80 x 160 cm, 2023).
THE INTERIOR MIND
Series have a point where they end.
It's unpredictable and just something you realize the moment it happens, you can feel it while painting or see when the painting is done. A certain routine sets in, a sense of repetition, that things start to get a little too easy. Also it feels like work and that is never a good feeling.
The painting The Interior Mind was intended as the beginning of a new chapter in the double series. Now it seems to be the end point.
The Interior Mind (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 160 x 200 cm, 2023).
THESE STREETS
The series These Streets are a different kind of intervention. This time I cut not the image, but the story by taking a scene from reality and reimagining it.
Like in the painting The Nativity, where a pregnant couple lived rough on the streets (near Hollywood Avenue) and interpreted them as a kind of nativity scene.
No home, no future.
The Nativity (diptych, oil & glaze medium on canvas, 2x 80 x 180 cm, 2023).
All of these paintings are based on excerpts from news(paper) clippings, chosen at random. Just things that caught my eye for some reason.
Holy Shit! (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 160 x 180 cm, 2023).
And the war in Ukraine just grinds on...
Spoils Of War - Ukraine, 2023. (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 160 x 200 cm, 2023).
TRANSPARENCY
The Storm (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 2023).
This is the first step in a new approach. It's still about the silhouette, the surface and the color, but now I look more at the way they interact in layers and at their transparency.
Transparency will be the most important part of this process.
Those Perfect Days (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2023).
The colors appear not only because they have been pre-mixed, but mainly because each new layer of paint is determined by the color/layer below.
Swan Song (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 2023).
There is something else that makes transparent layers of paint interesting. You can first make a completely different underpainting. The new layer above it can then change or supplement that story, making it more extensive and exciting, it deepens the story.
Reflection (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 180 x 180 cm, 2023).
My Land, Your Land (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 175 x 200 cm, 2023).
LAYERS OF MEANING
Layers, both the colors and the story, working with or against each other can (if all goes well) produce very interesting results.
The Smile (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2023).
This resulted in two major series:
THE BLACK PAINTINGS
I love Francisco Goya's Pinturas negras (1819-1823). No wonder they would inspire me sooner or later.
Crack Zombie (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2023).
This particular painting is based on some images I saw of addicts, the so-called Crack Zombies. These are quite haunting. By making a painting about it, I was able to get these images out of my head, out of my system, so to speak.
The underpainting that shines through is another nude based on Egon Schiele.
The Darkness (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 120 x 140 cm, 2023).
Here the underpainting is an empty room.
In a way, using black paint (actually a mix of ultramarine blue and burnt umber) makes it somewhat easy in a dramatic sense.
Hence the switch to a transparent white background, which is more resistant and more difficult to use. It doesn't hide anything.
THE WHITE PAINTINGS
These series are actually figures in landscape. The landscapes are the painting underneath. The biggest difference with the Black Paintings (except for the background color) is that the figure is not painted in white but in color.
Lily Of The Valley (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 140 x 180 cm, 2023).
Is there an erotic side to these paintings? Undoubtedly. Is that the main goal or motivation? No, the erotic is a by-product.
The Blue Nymph (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 70 x 90 cm, 2023).
Inevitably, the White and Black Paintings series (as both the opposites and the two sides of the spectrum) leave a vast field in the middle that can be filled with color.
I could call them the Color Paintings, but that would be stating the obvious.
INNER WORLDS
Gold Digger (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 200 x 220 cm, 2023).
In Gold Digger, the painting underneath is that of a mountain stream.
The Downfall (oil & glaze medium on canvas, 195 x 195 cm, 2023).
I first wanted to call this painting The Fall Of Babylon (because of the Babel Tower in the background) but I thought that was too obvious, hence the title: The Downfall.
And with that, I have decided that this will be the next step moving forward for 2024.
To be continued next year...