Urban

Urban: of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city.

When I think about urban I envision the decay of buildings, graffiti, and architecture of a by-gone era. Patinas that create abstracts have always been of interest to me and the subject of numerous photographs. Returning to my interest of what Urban means to me suddenly entered my work at about 2am a couple of nights ago. I was putting gesso onto a couple of substrates before I crawled into bed and didn't notice the grid and line patterns that occurred. It wasn't until the next day when I started adding paint that the urbanness (no such word, but it'll do!) became apparent. Odd how a direction will present itself if one simply gets out of the way. Muse at work? Most likely!

On the left is Night-scape and of course "O" is on the right, graffiti perhaps. When I was working on Night-scape I was reminded of how Georgia O'Keeffe got to a point in her work that was not satisfying and began over by working with black charcoal. Her simple lines in charcoal are exquisite. Maybe it's time I start to think about simplicity rather than how much texture and color I can put onto a piece. "O" isn't about simplicity, it's about making marks in a variety of ways including stencils. Exploration is good.

Quote: Robert Henri. "Know that the old masters did. Know who they composed their pictures, but do not fall into conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they were wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. All the past can help you."