Review of late images

Uggh. How difficult it is to link all the created identities from the birth of the internet to one soul? From my attempts this morning, it isn't possible. It is looking like, the hotmail address will win out because it is linked to this blog, and this blog is too long and invested in to abandon. Maybe I'll be able to work it out in the future.

What is coming out of the creative studio? These last couple of years have been spuradic. I have moved around a lot. But, lets get to it... As it goes, returning from my break into abstraction, I came back in with a strong desire to make reality pictures, mostly landscapes. I had to work out some issues concerning aesthetics in painting. I needed to figure out how to bend my mind around resolving issues of landscape simply, without getting too complicated, flat, and boring...




Cone Elevator CO OP, 7"x11", acrylic on mdf, 2008.

For the most part, I was able to extract what I needed to see in order to resolve contemporary aesthetics from abstraction that make a picture "interesting"; but, for the most part, most of this work was failed crap. The friction between the two aesthetic poles in my mind is noticeable. Concerning realistic or narrative images, I struggled between the power dominance between the less interesting aesthetic of self-taught realism, and the far more interesting abstract languages considered in academics. While on an adventure in Big Bend, I was able to make resolutions to this conflict of dimension and aesthetic language, composition and subject matter in cattle paintings.

Sierra Madre, acrylic on paper, 19"x23", 2010.

Great exercise pictures, cattle, landscapes, but time to get on to real narratives and say something. Below, is an oil painting titled "The Breaking of The Last Horse" painted in 2010. It is a reference to the spiritual/moral decay of the United States. The distant background depicts a "paramount" landscape like those of Big Bend, beneath, a small version of Washington D.C., burning. In the middle ground there is a sea of misguided souls with their leader waiting in anxious anxiety for the final foot to drop, the Pale Horseman to catch his horse and ride, bringing about the complete end of a nation. This was a painting foraged in despair, and as a warning of the prophetic times. It was also rendered in a time when I was doing open air landscape studies in Big Bend and, therefore, rendered in oil. It was signed in cursive with my full name in the lower left with the Latin "anno Domini", which is an annotation referring to when an age in the Christian Calendar has past. This was a signature technique observed by the old masters. This picture was rendered over the winter of 2009 and completed in early 2010. The below image is a poor digital representation with a hard light burn on the sky, as it were, this painting was sold to a man in Tampa, Florida, and shortly afterwards, all accurate documentations of this painting were lost by the artist...

The Breaking of The Last Horse, oil on canvas, 30"x34", 2010.

This post has been review, I'll post more soon... Follow me or comment. Ask questions if you have them.

Scene of the Blind man in the desert.

Script:
In the battles of searching the man and his spirit. By moonlite night walking. With brushes in hand; lack of sight for directions. ears only, skin to guide. Feet that long for the drink of water. That still spurn on the will of man into the drifting of the night. Into the nocturne of man. As much so as she. As she would be the unending depth of all sea. Of all sea's?

wonder's blindly:
"Memory."
Enter's the character, speech:
Nocturne of the desert.

"Did you believe you could paint better than I?
Pan away-
From a man speaking to no one there.
"Did you think you would have what is not even mine?"
laughter
laughter.
Man speaks:
"I believe," looking blind eyes for the sky of the moon, "still, I believe".

Character places material before blind man.
says of the character, "Then try. Try with these materials. If you can. Paint better than I." Mockery. The manner of the character as the man fumbles for the shape of things in the sand.
"Your times are over. Never to return. It's useless to even try. You cannot paint better than I. No. Not ever."
The man tries.
Among the cold night of the darkness he begins to draw what he sees. The character kicks dirt at he and his work, disapproving at it's simple beauty, Character snatches up the piece from the trembling hands of the blind man. His eyes fixed with envy, he stares into it.
break to show art:

Time passes-
The blind man again fumbles to bring forth another.
Quickly the character snatches away his utensils. "That's enough! You will never paint better than I! It will not be allowed!"

The character spits, and once again kicks dirt in the face of the kneeling man.
"I'm leaving your dumbass to die out here." - Taking all supplies the character retreats, turning away he leaves the scene, mumbling curses for the man. The trail of feet sound dies slowly into the night. The blind man stumbles up to his feet, his eyes look again for the moon, for the sky. He walks on toward the direction of the moon.

low the music sounds

Cut to the rising sun of the Bofecillos. Man stumbling towards the heat of the sun, hands running across the spine of cactus; falling, getting up, still blinded, stumbling. Falling to hands and knees the man is done. Alone in desolation.
A voice speaks of an ancient tongue:
(Culimnation of many tongues speaking the same thing)
"Be healed, my son."
The man's sight is restored. Blinking into the recognization of the sand. His white grit of pearl teeth crack with joy. His hands grasp the rock and sand, his eyes water like rivers of fresh wells. The voice reminds again, faded, as if continuing about a walkway;
"You are healed my son."
The man lifts his restored eyes from the ground:
His face is focused upon, eyes fathoming their interpretation, disbelief? Wonder! Shear fascination. He stumbles again to his feet. Blind, perhaps, again already his motions resemble those that are without eyes. The man moves forward:

Revelation of standing horse in sun:
He makes his way slowly, for the close proximity of the waiting horse, standing in the place of the sun. The Last Horse. His ride has come for him...
The seal is broken.

to be continued

The Age of the Gentile is Over.
anno Domini.

"Absolutes"

Obsessively I purchase paint and brushes for the time when
They will come around again.
I purchase with money and time.
Time I don't have.
I trade my life to see them grow.
To have them seen.
Hear their statements made.
"We are the end of abstraction.
We are the other extreme of Supreme."
I wait for the combonation.
I can see it working like the gears of the clock.
I wait patiently.
For the combonation of resource and time.
They tell me their history.
Where and Why.
I say, "The statements you make are your own ending."
No reply.
They know that already.
That is fine.
"Abstraction is dead. We are The Last"
A revolution is a rotating point on a wheel.
Each round a revival of time.
Challenges already begun:
Refine definition of real.
Define position in time.



One of the Original Twelve (distributed), acrylic on paper on board, 6"x24", 2006.

Resurrection of the Dead in Christ, acrylic on canvas, 2012.
I think that's probably been enough time for dormancy. There is a lot of back track dialogue that needs to be done on this blog. The last time anything went out here I was moving from Granger to Hondo. Those times are long gone. I'm going to slim it down some, talk about artwork, picture commentary and so forth, studio experience and happenings. I thought for awhile it would be best to try and categorize my work into all the different genres and apply them into different blogs respectively, while also discussing real life situations and their impact on art making; but, I'm realizing that all that effort is too cumbersome. So now, I'm going to put it up here as it goes, and not worry so much about it. 
 

This painting was done in an open air pole barn back in Granger, Texas, and sold to a man in Minnesota on eBay during a Friday the 13th art challenge. It wound up being a complete give away, as the money made from the sell was LESS THAN  the amount it took to ship the thing... it is about 36"x42" inches if I remember correctly... somewhere in that size range. I wonder about this picture and where it is, how it is doing. Wether it sees darkness or daylight... It is one of those tie together statements you make concerning times of human condition, past and present aesthetics, content and so on that mark directional shifts in an artists work.