faeries travel on slipstreams
I think it's time I start posting and discussing some of my art. Summer is quickly approaching and I can never paint in the summer, so this break is the perfect time to get my shit together and start putting my work out there. 
This is called faeries travel on slipstreams(a general statement). It's 28x34, oil on canvas. It was a part of that first gallery show I posted about last December. This photograph doesn't depict it, but rather than paint the edges I elected to write the following, starting with the left edge and working my way around: "Generally speaking, faeries prefer slipstreams to all other forms of transportation, exepting, of course, shooting stars and the shoulders of small children. The one in my garden told me this morning and I, for one, believe him."
I found a sick satisfaction in watching people approach the painting, which was hanging at eye-level, and (if they even noticed the writing) bending sideways and backward and frontward and standing on tiptoes to read the edges while trying not to draw attention to themselves for having done so.
This painting started as an attempt to paint Despair of The Endless, from The Sandman graphic novels, but very quickly became something else. I decided about 10 minutes into this painting that the blue figure wouldn't be Despair, but rather an ethereal creature in transit. It seemed a much more optimistic subject matter, so I switched to warmer colours and continued on in my usual way of just letting the paint go where it wants.
I didn't write the text around the edges until the day before I took it to the gallery. I had just done a painting based on a short piece of out-of-context flash fictionesque stuff I once wrote about a man with an increasingly altered brain chemistry and I felt that the faeries needed a little something to say. I should note that I love the way Donald Roller Wilson just writes in narratives concerning the subjects of his paintings right on the canvas. I know I could never conceive of an entire mythology of characters and storylines as he's done, but I like the idea of stories and paintings playing together. And abstract art, i feel, is a perfect medium thru which to tell odd little indie-film, from-out-of-nowhere, yet entirely compelling bits that make you tilt your head and go, "Quoi?" I want to create art that is stimulating emotionally and intellectually that makes you feel as if you're witnessing something strange and intruiging but you can't quite put your finger on what exactly it is. So that's the point of the text around the outside, not pictured here, written in black sharpie at the last minute to add another level of perception.
This is called faeries travel on slipstreams(a general statement). It's 28x34, oil on canvas. It was a part of that first gallery show I posted about last December. This photograph doesn't depict it, but rather than paint the edges I elected to write the following, starting with the left edge and working my way around: "Generally speaking, faeries prefer slipstreams to all other forms of transportation, exepting, of course, shooting stars and the shoulders of small children. The one in my garden told me this morning and I, for one, believe him."
I found a sick satisfaction in watching people approach the painting, which was hanging at eye-level, and (if they even noticed the writing) bending sideways and backward and frontward and standing on tiptoes to read the edges while trying not to draw attention to themselves for having done so.
This painting started as an attempt to paint Despair of The Endless, from The Sandman graphic novels, but very quickly became something else. I decided about 10 minutes into this painting that the blue figure wouldn't be Despair, but rather an ethereal creature in transit. It seemed a much more optimistic subject matter, so I switched to warmer colours and continued on in my usual way of just letting the paint go where it wants.
I didn't write the text around the edges until the day before I took it to the gallery. I had just done a painting based on a short piece of out-of-context flash fictionesque stuff I once wrote about a man with an increasingly altered brain chemistry and I felt that the faeries needed a little something to say. I should note that I love the way Donald Roller Wilson just writes in narratives concerning the subjects of his paintings right on the canvas. I know I could never conceive of an entire mythology of characters and storylines as he's done, but I like the idea of stories and paintings playing together. And abstract art, i feel, is a perfect medium thru which to tell odd little indie-film, from-out-of-nowhere, yet entirely compelling bits that make you tilt your head and go, "Quoi?" I want to create art that is stimulating emotionally and intellectually that makes you feel as if you're witnessing something strange and intruiging but you can't quite put your finger on what exactly it is. So that's the point of the text around the outside, not pictured here, written in black sharpie at the last minute to add another level of perception.
posted by devon at 9:35 AM
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