the new couch following the transformation from it’s previous existance as the dinner party
1:45 PM: after extensive work yesterday on the dinner party, i went over the whole thing with a wash of white mixed with brilliant yellow, scraped & wiped it down, flipped it 180° & started the drawing for a new painting titled the new couch. it’s inspired by photos i shot about 5 years ago from our upper floor, looking down on mikela holding the door open for 2 guys delivering our new couches & bringing them up the stairs to our living room.
as usual, the under-paintings contribute a lot to the surface i’m always after lately; mysteriously structured to peak the imagination and transporting the everyday into an event beyond our usual experience of the vast illusion we know as space/time.
what once was a pattern on the seat beneath the window has become a subtle indication of a floor. what was a dinner table now occupies the space just outside our front door, and so on. one thing these superimposed images have in common is that they are views from above looking down.
DETAIL of the new couch
in about 1980 i made this small painting of a house on the island of andros, greece. having lived in greece for 15 consecutive years, and spent every easter & summer on andros, i’m deeply familiar with the landscape & architecture of the island. this house is characteristic of the stone architecture of the island.