I found and scanned some old slides, transparencies, positives [ in Japan, they were: POJIS], whatever you want to call them now [Dated 1978-82], and thought I'd share them as I feel, they rather well established my homage to classical art and a long time ago to boot.
I was never able to wrap my head around rules and directions and regulations and formulae and recipes. But I like the look of classical, academic painting and tried my best to carve the knowledge out where ever I could...but not from people who took it TOO seriously. They scared me. I was tender.
Anyhow, check them out. All are Acrylic on Canvas and vary in size.
The Holidays are upon us so it's a good time for reflection'n'at! GGRRrrrr!!!
I used to be totally ignorant. Maybe even stupid because I had NO IDEA how much of 19th Century art was photo-optic based. NO idea! I thought that academics drew that way because that's the way they saw! I failed to understand how a complex painting [not just a study] was actually built. I was just a township Jethro and I was way too much into Yellow Submarine to swallow a lot of that frothy, folksy art philosophy whole though, so I snuck it in on the side at a time when old ex-ab-exers were talking about Grassy Greens and Archetypes and Julian Schnabel was playing Tom Waits before he spoke [I had two pints of Newcastle in my pockets!].
So I was a nutcase about photographing my friends in my well lit studio and then transcribing those into full sized portraits. I would'nt call it Photorealism [Hey--did anybody ever hear Louis Meisel* speak?] but rather more like Photo-Impressionism or better yet Photo-Fairfield Porter!
Now that craft and manual dexterity are all the rage again I feel like an outsider. I think that a lot of what goes into pedestrian art appreciation is a common understanding of labor, a caryover from the 19th Century. The concept that lots of work equal lots of good is a bankrupt one in my opinion. I can admire a fine turn of the wrist as reflected in the facile dabble but it all requies a context while most folks are still struggling with Cubism for fuck's sake! Sargent WAS. We IS!
Anyway, adieu for now mon amis!
PS Did you know that in ancient China there was a trend toward amatuerism as documented by James Cahill in The Painter's Practice [originally delivered as the Bampton Lectures at Columbia University in 1991]? No? Well for literally HUNDREDS of years, the general preference in art in China was for that done by retired civil servants and NOT trained artists!
Think about that! HUNDREDS of fucking years!
Also, I had never heard the word "TANGENT" in an art context until I moved to Detroit in 2003. FYI
* L. Meisel coined the term "photorealism" BTW.
PHOTO OF ME BY JESSIE LARSON AT JULIETTE'S!
