Month: March 2009

In an effort to rediscover my work and focus, as well as to better understand my subject, I am spending much of the month focusing on gesture.  I am treating trees as I would the human figure in a figure drawing class and am using quick rough gestures that attempt to ignore the surface and focus on the movement.

In these drawings what I am looking to find is the underlying mainline of movement or the dominant shape running through the length of the tree.  In the branches I focus on dominant areas of direction or angle.  I also look for areas that feel stressed, such as a hard bend.  In a sense this humanizes the tree a bit, for I am suggesting movement beyond the trees actual ability o move.  Yet I believe the gesture to be there and I feel this exercise will bring my closer to my trees and hopefully create some interesting work as well.  I have posted a few, with more to come soon.  They w ill be in the “2009 Drawing” page for now.

Below is a link to an interview of Alex Katz written by Mark Rappolt for Art Review Magazine.  Personally, I have never liked Katz’s work.   I would walk through the section of the Milwaukee Art Museum that featured Katz’s work and would shudder.  I remember disliking Katz when I was young, which says something at least for the impact of his work as being memorable.  I dislike Katz’s work mostly because of it large, posterized, pop image look.  I often love work that uses a graphic, posterized representation, but it is Katz’s simple shapes and seamless marks that drive me crazy.  I want to see paint move and dance!

In any case, the interview is interesting so I thought I would add it in.  Rappolt does a good job of pushing some complex questions.  I particularly like Katz’s description of art as fashion and the bubble that is occupied by artists fortunate enough to be doing the right work at the right time.  Katz’s comments about the state of art and culture are great, but I would have liked to read  more about his paintings, and why he paints the way he paints.  I am sure I can find something, there has been a lot written about him.  He definately has been part of the fashionable art-star bubble that he refers to.

To read the article:

http://www.artreview.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1474022%3ABlogPost%3A680007