New Painting: Fading To Pink

Fading To Pink, oil on canvas, 2010, 19 x 21 inches

Sometimes I question why we paint what we do. I have often thought that if I truly wanted to be happy as an artist, I would be a color field painter, because that is what it is really about for me – color.

Those that know me well artistically know that drawing isn’t my favorite of things. I don’t get the same satisfaction from drawing that I do from painting. While I recognize the importance of drawing, as it is the most fundamental aspect of art, it has always been more of an arduous process for me. Painting, especially large fields of color, is a more joyful experience.

So why am I not a color field painter? I love color field paintings, and Rothko has been a major influence in my work. But I think that to be a painter is to create problems for yourself that need to be resolved. Before a painting is begun, the canvas is white and perfect. Along with the first brush stroke comes the first problems to be worked out – is the color right? the shapes? the composition?

The silhouettes in this painting were the most difficult problems for me to solve, as it was largely drawing. When I was very young, I taught myself different styles of calligraphy, and that was what I was thinking of when I was painting the trees and vegetation. While I am fluent in Western styles of calligraphy, I was also considering Chinese calligraphy, of which I am not well versed but I appreciate. I am hoping that the similar elegant qualities of line show through with this work.

The inspiration for this painting was a sunset I saw from Mulholland Drive, and this work continues my exploration of the natural beauty in the Los Angeles area. This painting is also reminiscent of works I completed in Costa Rica in 2009, which is when I began to explore silhouettes of vegetation, as a way to make sense of the layers of shapes in the rain forest. While Los Angeles and Costa Rica couldn’t be more different, there is a similar quality of light, and beautiful sunsets abound in both places.

David Hockney at LACMA

Yesterday we saw a brief film at LACMA that chronicled David Hockney’s work in recent years. While Hockney is famously associated with Los Angeles, he is from England, and felt the need to return home. The film was about this journey home, and the work that came out of this period.

The film was a fascinating look at arguably one of the most famous living artists, and one of my personal all-time favorite artists. When he returned to England, and left the warm weather and blue skies of Los Angeles behind, he was inspired by the nuances of weather and landscape that we don’t experience in Los Angeles – foggy, misty mornings, grey skies, and the rolling hills of the countryside. He began a series of landscape paintings, and this turned out to be one of the most prolific times of his career.

It was fascinating to see Hockney go through periods of rejecting technology, and then embracing it. He has, throughout his career, used photography as a medium in various forms, but when he began this series of landscapes, he had rejected photography, stating that he was tired of looking through a hole at the world – that painting captures something that photography cannot.

While I agree with these sentiments, photography soon became important to him once again, as he embarked on the largest painting of his career, to be installed at the Royal Academy in London. This massive landscape painting was composed of fifty individual canvases, the total composition measuring 15 x 40 feet, and the only way he could see this large painting during various stages of completion was through the use of photography and technology on his computer.

After the film, we had the rare experience of being addressed by Mr. Hockney himself, which was a welcome surprise. Hockney received a standing ovation from the crowd, and proceeded to tell us what he was working on since the film, which documented the period of 2004-2007. Interestingly, technology has once again come to the forefront of his art, as he is enjoying drawing with a new medium – his iPad. We had the unique experience of seeing what Hockney was working on today, via his iPad, presented by him and in his own words. He has recently become fascinated by the process of drawing on his iPad, as the drawing can be documented, and then played back, so one can see the process from beginning to end.

It was inspiring to see that Hockney, who is 70+ years old, remains curious. His process is continually evolving, and he is continually making work. It was wonderful to see that he is embracing new technologies, in ways that I have been hesitant to do, as I am an oil painter, and oil painting largely predates current technology by hundreds of years. I learned from him that one can embrace new technology and remain true to self and one’s art. And one can always stay curious.