controlling aesthetic determination

Arranging pieces of drop cloth

the final decision is here if you scroll down

This is gilded leaf on top of and old waxed and plastered surface
waiting for tack

I will post the final images of the three metallic paintings I have completed later this week.

I cannot wait for them to tarnish.

photography happening tomorrow at the studio

good images to come

Per Kirkeby at Michael Werner.

light in the darkness,

a quality we share. That's why.

This is for you aris, it was in the back room at MIchael Werner Gallery .

An Italian artist they just started to work with whose name I cannot recall.

sorry its blurry, i was thinkin of other things

Exploring materiality

both above and below are my most recent pieces.

Made from drop cloths I used to protect the floor of the studio while I was painting backgrounds for clients.

The backgrounds were painted on large sheets of craft paper saturated with watered down latex house paint

which I squirted on to the paper from water bottles.

The saturation leaked through soaking the drop cloth and staining it.

I also used a heavy saturation of inks. The unprimed surface has an insatiable thirst.
For the duration of this semester I will not talk about personal issues in the work

but try to achieve a more critical understanding of the work.

The next few images are from some of the shows I viewed while in NYC last weekend

I went to Gagosian looking for Zack Faur but the always impressive found Richard Serra there instead. I love Rust so yes.

Nick Cave at Mary Boone

me thinks of lost DNA found

cotton in my mouth

did not want to touch

even though i love him
Trudy Benson at Michael Wiess

I thought of Liselott

hope she saw this show
there were some materials that turned me on as well as methods

of application but over all it sort of made me want to throw up

A Clinton Hill construction from Pavel Zoubok Gallery
These looked incredibly familiar.....I had never heard of this artist but now I plan to follow him around

or maybe he is already following me
His name is Sterling Ruby and he is at Andrea Rosen with Lucio Fontana

As significant as process is in both of their works there is a potential assumption

that the artists were dictated by process, but yet the work is still sophisticated.

They are able to simultaneously make physical process decisions and make very specific aesthetic decisions.

So while there is deep interest in the nature of the material and the limitation of the material,

and the creation and the destruction of the material,

there is also an over riding ability to control aesthetic determinations.

i know what your gonna say

entropic concrete


David stood at the top

I am standing in 1.5 feet of water lighting the Totem.

The photographs are an homage to family. an effigy for those who have past..

.not just for me but for all including the tree which was dumped in our yard after take down.

I've wanted to erect a totem since that day
here is a shot of my installation for the Sacred and Profane....the TOTEM reaches 15 feet.

each slab weighs between 150 and 200 pounds.

The water in the battery reflected the Totem creating the illusion of one continuous tower.

rainy day sunday

This is a detail shot of the vertical strips wheat pasted over the tar after sanding.

tape is making its way in.

The piece below is the first version.

I spread a layer of tar across the surface of the canvas and wiped it down.

The red is deeper, bloodier, better

the wheat pasted strip across the top is another piece

I had done on paper but proved more useful as a component to the larger pieces.

pretty sure the skirt was this color.
quite accidentally I realized the backside

of the paper pieces was closer to what I was looking for.

I love the way the white enamel dots bleed through in an uneven manner.

Inside out is outside in.

I guess I'll show this detail twice cause it photographed well up close.

Red is necessary in homage of the red skirt.

I blink my eyes and i am there.

Like in that movie....Don't Look Now.......

He sees his daughter pass around a corner in a red hooded coat and goes in search of her to no avail....

red is powerful in the memory bank.
detail above...looking close, there is a lot to see, secrets everywhere.

whole painting below

Blurry, but necessary to add. I am now loving this piece!

I need to find the other images of the beach runners love that I painted out.
I just had to work on these one more time.

I was unhappy with the result of the tar.

Others did not agree with me, but I have to be pleased, why else would I do this!
Below are a couple of views of work in the studio.

most of what I am showing you are details of the pieces.

These images allow you to see the scale of the paintings in relation to each other.

and with a pencil to show scale.
I used up the remainder of the last batch of wheat paste.

Stinky and moldy it was but I think it was still working perfectly!

That was a good batch.
Yesterday in the studio proved a rigorous workout!

I worked all day until there was no more room to move

around and everything I could proceed on was wet!