This was a bit of a battle to complete, but I’m pleased with the outcome.
The next several months will be painting for an upcoming solo exhibition in Los Angeles. I have been exhibiting my work in galleries for twelve years now, and every time, the gear up and anticipation for making a large body of work always feels the same — I fluctuate between being kind of nervous and kind of excited.
I’m calling this my Time Travel series. Usually, I take a day to set the clocks to the same time, but for this one, I wanted the random order that the clocks were at when I set them up on the little blue suitcase.
If anything, my paintings are about objects that can be touched and held in hand and have some history recent enough to make sense to the viewer but obsolete enough to become almost useless to modern life. To me, the experience of these objects is more melancholic than nostalgic.
I’ve had so many typewriters in my possession over the years, so I’ve come to appreciate the good and the bad. And this is good. Really good. This machine is just built better, with more precision, more care to build quality. Everything is just fit and finished and attention to detail. And so, as far as collector’s items go, this one is at the top and, therefore, way out of my price range. However, I was able to borrow it from a dealer and am grateful for the opportunity.
I just put the finishing touches on this commission, and soon it will be off to a collector’s home.
Painting at the peak of summer has always been a challenge. The warmest days make me actually lethargic and groggy. I’m fortunate to have air conditioning in my studio. An addition that came a few years ago. And during this summer, with the extended endless days of hot sun, I cannot fathom working without cooled air at the touch of a button.
Sitting in my studio in the early summer morning, the painting I am working on was soaking up the light, so I quickly took a photo.
The colour of the painting was entirely dictated by the shifting tones in the light, a cool to warm gradation was passing over the surface of the three foot width of the painting.
These paintings are built up of thin layers of paint, even the large amount of white you see. As the light changes throughout the day and the year, I like to see how the paintings themselves seem to change as the light bounces around the room and off the painting’s surface. The mood of the work can be entirely dependent on the space they are in and the angles they are viewed and even the time of day.
I’m almost done with this piece. Then I’ll be focussing on a somewhat complicated commission.
Last week, I mentioned that I had spent much time painting typewriter keys in the past few months. So here’s an example of more typewriter keys.
Repetition, continuity, rhythm, symmetry and balance — these are all elements that drive my paintings. But also, they drive my studio practice. For centuries artists have repeated subjects, returning to the same thing repeatedly to improve upon their last iteration.
I have seen artists entirely give up on the idea of a career doing what they love because they get bored with the notion of always returning to the same subjects. The not-so-secret secret, it would seem, is to keep coming back to what you know.
Cézanne paintined Mont Sainte-Victiore dozens of times. The same view, over and over. Monet did a series of Rouen Cathedral 30 times. The precise same position and composition.
And so today, I return to painting yet more typewriter keys and other intricate details of the mechanisms that make these machines so interesting to me.
I wish I were boarding a plane to France, but alas, it is just my paintings that live exciting lives.
This new commission will soon be in the hands of a collector. Over the last several months, I have painted so many typewriter keys.
A recent commission that turned out great — which makes me happy as it is huge at 60 x 40 inches. Crated and shipped off to clients on the East Coast of the USA.
It looks simple enough, but a large amount of white space is several thin layers of paint that took days to dry while I anxiously waited and hoped no specks of dust or marks would ruin the smooth surface I work to achieve. The effect is a luminosity that changes with different light throughout the day and the change of seasons.
Four more in my ongoing series of single-clock paintings. When I began this series at the end of last year, I was moving the hands along as I went… 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and so on. It wasn’t long before I was going around again. So I changed the naming scheme. The hands will stay at 10:10 as the paintings are on 10 x 10-inch canvas.
These four are now at the George Billis Gallery in Westport, Connecticut. You can see them closer here: No.1, No.2, No.5, No.6.
