Dislocated Histories

The summer of 2011 brought travel to several U.S. cities and a chance to actually be out of the studio and recharge.

I will be posting new works as they are completed. I will also be adding more video links with these latest works.

A few shots from the gallery opening. It was great to get a chance to meet people who own works of mine. It’s always strange to send these paintings out into the world and wonder where they wind up. Several people had photos with them documenting the works  as they appear in their homes. This is always interesting to see and even better to hear the relationships people have developed with these works and how much a part of their personal environment /experience it is. This was a suprise to me – a very nice suprise – a dimension to this whole endeavor I had not anticipated.

For the September 11th show at Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas -I have put together a short 4 minute video giving a glimpse of the studio and painting process. This latest work that references an image from  17th centiry Dutch painterMichiel van Miereveld.

Heres a link to the video:

Finishing up a second re -mix portrait from the painter Frans Pourbus. This one is Portrait of a Frenchman, 40″ x 52″

Margerita Gonzaga (1591 – 1632) was the eldest daughter of Vincenzo I Gonzaga. Her three brothers succeeded her father as Duke of Mantua. Her sister Eleonora became the Holy Roman Empress from her marriage to Ferdinand II,the Holy roman Emperor. Margerita was married to Henry II, Duke of Lorraine in 1606, and they had four children, two survived infancy. Margerita died at age forty and she had been a widow since 1624.

On this particular work, the detailing on the clothing and the lace collar consumed most of the time. It always takes several layers on the detailed elements. Throughout the work i left more sections that expose the initial layers of my painting process. This serves to deviate even more from the original image but help re -emphasize the re-constructed nature of the finished work and concept. This work ended up being a larger scale two panel portrait measuring 60″ x 80″. the original image is derived from the portrait of Margerita Gonzaga painted by Frans Pourbus

This is a large two panel work being done for an upcoming show. The original image is by Dutch artist Thoma DeKeyser. DeKeyser was one of the most sought after portrait artists in the first half of the 17th century. It was Rembrandt that eclipsed DeKeyser’s popularity with patrons. At one point DeKeyser had to turn to other means for income, a situation not uncommon for artists during that time. While many of 17th century Dutch portraits feature the subject within a predominately dark setting, DeKeyser’s image shows a full length figure in his contemporary finery amidst a well lit architectural backdrop. As usual with the larger works, this one took some time for me to complete.

Man with Flag, 60″ x 80, oil /metal

A recent take on a portrait by Anthony  Van Dyck. The original is a fairly dark open portrait -at least in reproduction. I cropped in considerably  and merged the collar with the ink like underpainting I had prepared. The colors appear a bit more vibrant than Van Dyck’s original, and I left it that way. I t was an interesting piece to pull from the murkiness of the reproduction and scale up. This work is 40″ x 60″ oil on metal.

This work is finished and is about to be varnished. The portrait is originally by Peter Paul Rubens and presumably a wedding portrait of a young woman married into a wealthy family in Antwerp circa 1617. Her elaborate dress is of French style and a product of court culture. Clothing of this extravagance was not typically chosen by women at this time, thus revealing the status of the bride and her betrothed ancestry.  (Information from Rubens, a Genius at Work, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium)

The bright magentas /purples which appear on this work, are some of the initial priming layers which were masked off in the early stages of the work. Typically I will start on the face, but in this work -the lace which envelopes her features actually came first. Lace is problematic for me to paint – more so when it is enlarged to this scale. I go in and paint the negative spaces, the darker areas first then go back and begin layering on top and around these initial shapes. Once this is at a reasonable state of recognition, I then begin painting her facial features which are layered in pretty much the same manner.