the BLANK Series

 

My paintings are portraits of contended ideas, persons, places, things and other ideas that seem important to ponder, discuss, become better acquainted and understand. Such ideas are the core of the existential dialogue of ordinary people, philosophers, politicians and poets. But sometimes a BLANK (person, idea, place, event, etc) influences the dialogue of ordinary people, philosophers, politicians and poets to a great extent.

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Now is such a time of BLANK influence. (I will let you name BLANK as you choose). The point is that BLANK has influenced my art in subtle and not so subtle ways. Of course, my intent is to focus my art upon the BLANK objectively; attempting to elimnate every gratuitous and righteous image or word from each portraits of contended ideas.

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This BLANK Series, as all of my portraits of contended ideas; began with one idea, The Centaur of the Russian World, painted in 2015.  A lot of stirring up was happening in the political world, stirring around that Centaur.

 

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 Next in this development of this BLANK Series is the double sided portraits of No Child Left Behind/By Any Means Necessary, also painted in 2015. The racial divide in America was widening around the issue of drugs, guns, jobs and prison. I still was unaware that these two paintings were part of the same BLANK series.

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Finally, the political world started to get really ugly. Prior to the GOP's presidential nomination, I painted Ode to T-Rump in 2016. This painting portrayed the increased lies, hatred and lack of integrity that was dominating American presidential politics. This formed the third leg in this BLANK Series. I expected this leg to wither; but it grew like a cancer.

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After the GOP nominee was elected President; but before the inauguration, I painted Lady Liberty Meets Minotaur. It portrays this looming BLANK issue in aggressive image and storm of ideas (indicated in the bubble of words) blasted during the election across the world media.

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It was toxic to focus upon the BLANK issue, which was everywhere; so I  focused my art upon another issue that had been churning in my mind: years, censorship, banned books and such. As I began painting, I realized that censorship and banning were not the issue, or the tools of modern authoritarian politics. Thus in 2017, as I thought I was taking a break from the BLANK issue; I painted Beyond Banned Books. But when the painting was almost complete, my unconscious intruded and insisted that I paint a little off balanced orange man. And so in the end the BLANK issue snuck into my art. 

 

 

Immigration and the immigrant had long been an idea which I considered painting in various images. But my ideas were never ready to portray. Then among the President's firsts banning Muslims. I painted Immigrant, Denied, Detained, Deported.

 

 

I struggled again to avoid  and paint anything besides the BLANK issue. For the next three paintings (Still Life, Liposuction and Hiroshima) I mostly succeeded. Then I took up a topic that I had sketched a few years ago of money, sex, gambling and other addictions. It was originally meant to be a triptych but as I painted, it morphed into a single painting which I titled The Minotaur, the Banker, and the Wife. And so my Daimon would not avoid the BLANK issue. The Minotaur (half man all bullshit) is of course Trump (the pariah of the modern world whom we have yet to figure out how to confine to a labyrinth.

 

Again with my Church Rock painting, I mostly avoided the BLANK Issue. But then The BLANK Issue asserted itself directly in my next two paintings. In Minotaur in Nightshirt and The White Minotaur, the BLANK Issue is in clear focus. The collage The White Minotaur was inspired and would not have been done were it not for Ta-Nahesi Coates powerful poetic words; which are cut and pasted upon my canvas.

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Again I avoided the BLANK Issue, this time by painted an old idea rapidly, Shadow and I. But I did not succeed for long. I next began to paint another old idea, appropriated from Magritte and Koons, a balloon man. But as I painted the idea and imaged morphed into something entirely different, which included an orange dog. Thus the painting became Oligarch and Orange Dog in floating stroll across clouds.

 

I describe this BLANK Series, as it evolved and asserted itself upon me. It is not contrived; rather it is something that I really wished to avoid. Yet if an artist must listens to his inner voice (his Daemon), after that he has only so much control of what and how he paints. My painting and poem Shadow and I describes this struggle and process. Let me here also link to a powerful definition of what art was not.

 

I don't think that this BLANK Series of paintings is complete yet. I certainly wish that it was. I would much rather be painting Addicted to Placebos, Entangled Electrons, or any of the hundred of ideas ripe for painting. But as I begin each painting, I listen to my Daemon. Currently, and my last painting of 2017 is Lost Whale. It should be finished in the next week or so and posted early next year.

 

TNN 12/19/2017 

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But NO!! I could not finish Lost Whale in 2017. Nor have I begun Mr. Robot and Mr. Boy as I have intended for quite some time. The BLANK Series intruded and after struggling with several ideas; finally I was painting the 9 canvas The Rape of Jane Doe in Front of Three Witnesses. For some time, I have wanted to steal some of the humor from Max Ernst, Young Virgin Spanking the Infant Jesus In Front of Three Witnesses.  But no, my painting portrays no humor; rather it portrays a nightmare. 

 

I then finished Lost Whale; but not before I began working upon donated to science, brain and hair of a very stable genius.  

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TNN 5/25/2018

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