a big thunderstorm is approaching & i've got to scamper home. i'll explain the name change later.
later: it was just a brief storm.
ok, so whats up with the name change? this is the first of a series; now i'll be focusing on smaller paintings featuring severely cropped portions of this and one other parade image shot from a second story balcony above skoufa gallery in athens, greece. go to my story page to understand my deep connection to greece, and to the media page to read a recent interview in a melbourne newspaper.
if you look carefully, you'll notice that there are areas in this painting that seem "unfinished." what is "unfinished?" well, in brief, i believe our opinions on this topic are largely unexamined. I've been re-evaluating my views ever since mikela and i saw the exhibition "a brush with nature" at the frick in nyc in the fall of 2000 ..........more later
9/8/14 if you scroll down past the best left unsaid details, you will find a slide show illustrating the "unfinished" concept, as written about by the authors of a brush with nature, published in 1999 by the national gallery, london. i have included 3 examples of 19th c. landscape studies in the gere collection that illustrate the point. each, in it's own way is consciously "unfinished." i think this aesthetic is very contemporary, in that it coincides with our increasing awareness and appreciation of process, as opposed to the more static end result mindset. EVERYTHING is process! it's one of the reason rehearsals and unpublished practice sessions of the beatles, dylan, etc. are so compelling. you might say, as an analogy, the preliminary sketch is still visible. what is, what might be, what was are all fluidly present....
go to my 9/4 post to see what this painting looks like in it's "unfinished" state. i could have left it in this state and it would be "finished." perhaps even a more compelling painting, i'm thinking.....
it's also an interesting example of what david hockney has repeatedly told me, "it's all joost marks on a surface, luv!"
i especially love the sketched in clouds just above the horizon on the left of the landscape painting with the big sky and the bottom 20% empty (bottom row, left).
today i plan on stretching smaller 16" square canvases to begin a series of unfinished, parade related paintings, which will all be part of a mini-show in the planning stages.
click on slide show below
BELOW: a brush with nature slide show
