1:41 PM: i spent most of this cloudy, very windy day creating the next stage of tokyo olympics 8, which i just began yesterday. it may actually be resolved. as you will observe, elements of the previous three or four paintings in this tokyo olympics series have been carried over to this current version. the figures continue their celebration; the drummer continues playing; the persian red continues it’s dominant coloristic role. i like to think that, as someone once said of matisse,my current work is transcending the picturesque for the sublime.
i have made enough realist works over the course of my career to feel comfortable allowing any realist elements to function primarily as design elements in a unique arrangement of colors, patterns and forms that elecit wonder and, ideally, give the viewer a spiritual experience on top of the aesthetic one.
at some point mid-morning, i glanced to my left at w-cup 2, tacked to my east studio wall. my eyes landed on the bare breasts of the central female dancing figure with her red hat, and i couldn’t unglue them (my eyes) form her bare breasts. they seemed to take away from the music of the whole. so i painted over them, creating a checkered patterning like the one on her shorts, but in a pale grey.
and now, the music seems restored and, as i gaze at it from 25 feet away, i can enjoy the entire composition without getting stuck on her bare breasts.
BELOW: before and after painting over the breasts
tokyo olympics 8, 37 1/4x 18 3/4” oil on portrait linen
