watercolor 54
1:23 PM: earlier (see 11:50 am post below) i commented on re-discovering a 2017 study i made of a gorky painting. looking at it opened the door to a new slant on the creation of watercolors 53 & 54. i have a dear friend in nyc who is a superb poet and published novelist. her poetic process over the years has been one of gradual refinement and distillation to the point where now, when she sends me one of her new and as yet unpublished poems, i literally swoon. i would like to think that we are traversing parallel paths.
looking at my gorky study earlier today reminded me of what exactly enchants me about his work, and reminded me of my own process of refinement and distillation over the years. it allowed me to inject a fresh element into my latest watercolor: watercolor 54. it’s closer in spirit to some of the discoveries i made while making the gorky study, below. what’s interesting about what gorky did, now that i look at it more critically, are his blacks. what would that painting be without them? i haven’t used pure black at all in this series of watercolors. there is no black at the creek. so what? 2:48PM: tried it & it doesn’t work! not my aesthetic.
9.5x13” gouache on paper 2017 study of gorky painting
hiking in northern california, about 1985
11:50 AM: this is a 2017 study i made of an archile gorky painting. i learned a lot. the language he developed resonates with me, as do his compositional and coloristic solutions. his sense of whimsy belies his deeply disturbed mental and psychological state, which ended with his suicide.
gorky was very successful in transporting and reinterpreting his early years in armenia to his vibrant years in nyc and integrating it all into his friendships with dekooning and others in the ny school of painting. he created a stellar body of work.
on the left is a photo shot in 1985, when mikela and i were backpacking in the northern california mountains not long after we met. we made regular hiking and camping trips to that same area for a number of years, and always had a terrific time. we would take day hikes, swim in the lakes and cook delicious meals over the fire.
i’m about to get started on a new watercolor, and will update later in the afternoon.