I have found two artists with whom I am currently infatuated because of their use of color specifically and the contrast within each piece of muted vs. saturated. Mark Gould’s paintings have passages within them that are applied in a non representational way, but when made part of the whole, make sense more as an abstraction of something without fully knowing what it is. I appreciate the contrast between the recognizable and the unrecognizable.
The second artist’s work I am infatuated with is Brian Rutenberg’s. He also deals with representing the natural world, but adopts Francis Bacon’s belief that “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery” (
Brimming Tides, Mark Sloan, pg. 4). THe way he deepens the mystery is by abstracting even more than Gould. His passages that appear non-representational take up a much larger percentage of the whole and leave only traces, a bone structure if you will, of the subject matter of the natural world.
They have inspired me to not only use more color, but be smarter about it. Using contrasts to strengthen the piece and avoid muddying the paint in the process. Using Muted areas that by contrast make the brighter saturated colors really shine. And also, I have learned from them that realism isn’t necessarily the best way to communicate the beauty of nature or of anything for that matter so long as you do what you do well. And, if you do what you do well, then no one can/should stop you from succeeding at it.
Sincerely,
Stephen
No comments:
Post a Comment