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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