jazz 14, 35x37” as it looked at the end of my painting day.
2:25 PM: i continued work on jazz 14, making substantial changes and revealing a bit more of the underlying, original version. i like that it doesn’t have any well defined figures; it’a all suggested and the main “subject” is the composition itself and the suggested sensuality.
the white strokes mid-left take it beyond it’s predecessors, to a new place, where my love for the great abstract experssionist deKooning supercedes any attachments to description. the familiar figures from my menagerie are present, but none stands out. it’s the edge of abstraction.
the thing about this way of working is that, when i do the underpainting, i have to believe that it’s final, and not something that will be painted over and possibly dissapear altogether. i even have to be excited about it! and once it gets to the stage jazz 14 reached today, i always wonder: how the fuck did i do that? and yet i keep doing it. it’s a mystery.
BELOW: yesterday’s version is on the left
