City of Glass 58 - (Noir) 120x80cms
Resolved and a new title: Noir refers to the colour and to the genre. This morning I tuned up the dull-reds, picking out the strange shape, just below centre, that hovers forwards. The panel in the top-left was painted yellow, now balancing with the blue shape that anchors the painting. A transparent ultramarine was washed over the tower, sweeping around the tip of Manhattan, enriching the colour and softening the edge. A few tweaks of horizontals and verticals, opening up the space. The grid in the bottom-right now extended, no longer isolated, the open brick-shaped rectangle the same proportions as a typical city-block.The extended vertical up the right-side left open, deliberately. Enjoying the whoosh of the dragged mark from the bottom right corner, the dynamism, the variety of shapes and paint, the light, the subversions of scale. Thoughts of Mondrian: Grid, Red, Yellow, Blue, Black.
detail
twins
Thursday
A good day in the studio - a scary white canvas this moning. Another version of AusterAuster about a journey from fictitious Paul Auster's home on Riverside Drive to 'real' Paul Auster's home in Brooklyn. (see yesterday's Blog) Things are happening. A similar composition with the long diagonal linking the two locations but this time the left-side is a building. I'm enjoying the seamless transition between the building and the plan-view of Manhattan along the diagonal and the play between the stepped profile and the curves on the east side of the island. The intersection of the diagonal and building is poweful and deliberate: they meet on the 11th floor where the 'fictitious' Paul Auster has his apartment.
A mix of geometry and movement: again a rhythm of triangles and a swirling, boiling black sea around Manhattan, shiny, luscious barely photographable. A word? Strange space and perspectives - the New York canyon thing but between the buildings is...Manhattan. The Tower of Babel implied by the steps and triangles along the diagonal...there but not there...
It's raw, it's exciting, it's different - is it enough?
detail
in the studio
beginnings