During the summer of 2005, I spent every day working on oil paintings, with the specific purpose to build up my portfolio so I could get into a good Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) program. I put my heart into working a 40 hour week painting and working on related art projects. I studied Wittgenstein, Cage and a large pile of art books, not to mention academic texts on Symbolism, Nationalism and technology in order to formulate my ideas related to the conceptual project I had in mind. Once I was finished, I had painted around thirty 54" by 36" paintings and six 74" by 54" paintings which described the research I had committed myself to.
This past week, I took all my work into one of my professors to discuss what needed to be improved on my body of work. I first discussed with him my artist statement and proposal, which I admit needs a great deal of work. I have thoughts in my head that I need to express a little bit more coherently, which need to come together by the end of this semester. After discussing my philosophies, I showed him the progression of my artwork. We talked about its relationship to other contemporary artists, such as Jean Michel Basquiat, and then he proceeded to talk about the weaknesses he saw in my paintings. One of the principle things he felt the paintings as a body lacked, was a sense of connection between the symbols and robots on the canvas. In looking at past work of mine, there is a common isolation between groups and individual objects in the paintings. I don't think it has ever been a conscious decision of mine, however, I can agree with my professor that any kind of undecided factor in my work is a failure to control composition.
He added a few suggestions and sent me home with a great deal to think about. Now, a few days later, I've thought a lot about what he said. I don't know if I agree. These two paintings are my experiments with trying to expand the connection between what exists on my paintings. I thank my wife for forcing me into the studio just to get started on things. I might just have destroyed these two works, especially because I feel like these two pieces loose the message that I wanted to convey. Instead, they become blurred with new images that don't direct the viewer to consider globalization and technology. Instead, they just become creepy. Odd.
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Re: Starting Over Again
These are comments we had talked about to each other, but figured we should share with anyone else who wanted to comment, so they'd know what we were talking about.
One of the over all themes in this body of work relates to the connection we're able to experience in communication despite cultural differences because of communication. I think I first felt like it was all about technology because that's really where my interests lie, but I'm beginning to realize that technology is only a medium through which globalized communication exists. So, further universal symbols, such as the golden arches (which are copyrighted, by the way) are global and belong to everyone now. I've developed a handful of wonderful replacement images for the standard lettering for THAT symbol. Meatwillhelp. Meatisgood. Makeitmoo. I like that last one... it makes me laugh everytime I look at the image I made.
I feel like the weakest point is the new "foreground" I've introduced. I don't want to water down this message, but there isn't any kind of ground or foreground in the paintings before I altered these two. I think they lack depth without that dimension.
Re: Starting Over Again
I guess I have a difficult time seeing the connection between the skulls and bones you began to introduce in later works in Seattle, and that I see emerging in the paintings you have started reworking. At least from my understanding of your theme of technology and symbols...
I do like the color that you have introduce, but I'm having trouble deciding if it distracts, or brings attention to the very neutral colors you have used up until this point.
One more comment, it's interesting, because until you put good ole Mc-i-D's symbols on these reworked paintings, I had forgotten that advertising is another of those "universal" symbols everyone understands...that it's not just technology based symbols we understand in a global perspective...of course I like your interpretation of those advertising symbols though. hehehe meatwillhelp. :)