Body As Bridge

From One World To The Next - 2012 - acrylic on illustration board - 15 x 20 inches

I am in a time of great transition right now as I am moving my studio of 21 years in downtown Winnipeg, to a new location in my just-moved-to new residence. A lot of change. Perhaps too much. It took me 6 weeks to paint this 17 hour painting. To me it's a long time, though some of these paintings have taken me years to finish because I just did not know how to resolve them at their various stages, or they just seemed to want to have more detail in them. But for this painting, I just did not have the time. From packing up the house for months and moving at Easter, and then right after starting to pack up the studio, all I've been doing is packing, sorting and reflecting. The only other art time is a bit of doodling.

There has been a lot of reflection, memories, realization of a loss. I came across a new piece of old music that I have not heard before by one of my early favorite musicians , Jean Michel Jarre. The piece is called En Attendant Cousteau in the Cd of the same name. This music came to me at a time that seems to reflect in a great deal this inner sadness and loss(?) and cosmic memory.

Change is good they say. I don't see it yet. I'm not sure where I am headed. There are parts of me that even wonder If I will paint anymore. Do I even want to?  I don't even have room to paint in the new place! This painting was a struggle as it seemed that I was forgetting how to paint. Like a dream that is there when you first realize that you were dreaming, then when you are fully awake there are only fragments left.

This painting is a rendition of a painting I did in a few hours, a couple years ago at a painting jam at the Keycon sci-fi convention. I liked the painting a lot, but there was something that needed to be explored more, and I had wanted to create another version of it since. When I started the painting in March of this year I did not know for a fact that I was moving the studio.  It seems appropriate now.

I will let my higher self lead me to higher ground.        

Seed Mechanics

Embryo Seeds / Potential  /  Germinate  /  Growth  /  Movement  /  Form  /  Birth

All is One  /  All is Flesh  /  Crystal Light  /  Sound  /  Sight  /  Third Eye  /  Flight 

Chariot Of  The Nephilim - July 2011 - 8 x 13 in. - acrylic on matt board

 
Out of Flesh - July 2011 - 9 x 13 - acrylic on matt board

     Both of these paintings were started in 2001 and were in a 'finished state' and exhibited as a series of 3 paintings, one of which was sold (Flight of the 3rd Eye). As with most of my Meta Figure paintings, they start off very quick and rough so to speak but are complete on their own in that they structurally house all that there is in the work. I liken it to an out of focus image of a person. They are all there but you can't see the details. I love abstract work and that is why I love the beginnings of these paintings and hold on to them so dearly, but over time, I tend to want too see more and focus on the finer details of these figural structures.

    The first sessions in these works last 30 - 60 minutes. After this, Out Of Flesh was not worked on again until January of 2011 and 16 hours later over 5 months time it was finished. Sometimes a piece never seems finished, which usually means that it is not finished. It takes a very special feeling to know that you are seeing all that there is to see in that particular work and to know that you will no longer need to visit it again.

     Chariot Of The Nephilim as I mentioned was also started in 2001 (2 hours) (as a matter of fact it was right after the Metanomacies show at the Manitoba Legislative building) and was not worked on again until Sept 2007 ( 2.5 hours), then in Nov & Dec 2008 (8 hours) and then was finished in Jan, Feb & Mar 2011 (7 hours) for a grand total of 19.5 hours work. It's funny to think that something that would normally take so little time, maybe a weeks work, took so long. But what is time?