While trying to sleep on an air mattress in my sister’s spare
bedroom in Brooklyn while Hurricane Irene winds howled outside, for only a minute or so I was in a
delirious, half awake/half asleep state. Her apartment, in a recently renovated tenement,
features a contemporary open floor plan with mostly white walls covered with fuchsia decorations. You don’t often think home décor and fuchsia, so in that near-sleep
state my mind wanders to contemplate decorating in pink. I think of just the color pink against a
black background, pink matter, not making any discernible shape but just clumping
and swirling. Next, there's lime green battling it out
with the fuchsia. The individual colored shapes swirl and slowly start to
take a new form together, as a mass of complimentary colors, pulsating. Now,
I’m thinking of not just pinks and greens fighting for space, but other colors as
well. From this, an idea for a new painting series is born, with at least 3 paintings needed to show the progression.
When I got home I started a watercolor that’s sort of 2D
representation of what I imagined as a 3D, “origins of the universe” sort of
fight (#1 The Fight). I then started to think about a second painting (#2 The Planes) and how things might
progress. I introduced planes with colors starting to congeal and make shapes.
The third composition progresses to shapes taking recognizable forms and a landscape (#3 The Scene). I maintained the same technique and media throughout: ink and watercolor
on Arches Cold Press paper. I mounted the papers, rather than placing mats on
top, because I did not want to weigh down or confine the shapes. I needed
to stay in step with the concept of the shapes organically coming together. Obstructing the edges of the paper wouldn’t allow the colors, shapes,
and eventually objects, from moving. The 3 paintings are pretty big (about 24”
x 36”) and are framed (28 ¼" x 40 ¼”).
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| #1 The Fight |
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| #2 The Planes |
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| #3 The Scene |
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