God In An Alcove
Something new by Xliontamer
Be Alive Again
Here’s my current painting. Not quite done. The skull looks a little non-human. I’m a gonna fix it. The idea here is this is a short series on the traditional style of painting called the Memento Mori. A painting which usually contains a skull and is meant to remind us to live life to the fullest because we all have to die. They fall into the still life category and typically contain images of skulls, bones, flowers, clocks, hour glasses, insects, fruit, and items which are fleeting, decay and may be personal to an individual. The Victoreans liked them, cuz, well…they were obsessed with death.
The scrawled phrase, "Come on be alive again'“, is from the song Malibu by Hole. I usually listen to music when I’m painting and I’m frequently inspired by music. Lyrics to modern pop music, well some of it, is the current form of poetry. The lyrics to Malibu are quite beautiful.
Nothing At All , Versions 2 & 3 together
These two panels are really meant to be together. The left has the letters carved into the encaustic and the right has the letters raised above the surface.
Immerse
In the last year, I’ve mostly been trying to hone my traditional painting skills. I never wanted to be a realist, however, there are elements of my recent paintings that I want to look more realistic or at least believable in the context of the painting. This requires more focus, the right brushes, paints, mediums, and a detailed drawing prior to even beginning painting. It’s a much more controlled way of painting. Yes, I can use more control in my work, but it’s also hard to repress my internal expressionist. Sometimes I just have to let him out of the box. The result is the image I’ve posted here of a painting entitled Immerse. Done in pastel and encaustic, it has a dreamy, quality, no sharp edges, straight lines or layers of glazing with a 0 size brush. Making this was like a huge exhale.
It already found a good home. Appropriately sold it to one of my swimmer friends, Kelly Owens , last week.
Skull with Carnation
Finished this. Just pumped up the color in the skull and the carnation. Carnations aren’t easy to paint because they are so ragged.
Aug. 7, 2019. Skull with Carnation
Just about finished with this small piece (11 x 14). Needed to do something with a simple composition after working for days on the paintings in my show at the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center. The exhibit is a two person show with my brother, Jerry, as the other half. Happy to exhibit with Jerry. We have worked independently as artists for a long time and never really did something like this before…. well, there were a few shows with my punk rock band where Jerry sat in as the drummer, but that was like a century ago. The show runs from Aug. 4th to Sept. 4th.
The painting here is entitled Skull with Carnation for obvious reasons. It is a straight up memento mori.
Process, Work and the Result
I’ve always liked the process of creating artwork. I was first drawn to printmaking when I started to take my work a little more seriously. I wasn’t very confident in my creative talent but I knew I could learn the processes required to make certain types of art, like printmaking, photography and alternative photo processes. I loved printmaking and prints I created were some of the first artwork I ever showed in public. Etching, lithograph, silk screen, colograph, and monoprinting all had there own particular look, and to become really proficient in any of them took, experience and attention to the detail of the process.
Donald Sultan is a well known artist who has created series of fairly simply images that required a great deal of material and construction technique. Below is one of his signature paintings. Materials consist enamel, tar and spackle on tile over masonite. Why would he choose such difficult materials when oil paint, acrylic or watercolors would have produced a similar result? First of all, I guess it’s the artist’s choice. Secondly, I suppose there is a certain amount of poetic irony putting a lot more work than is necessary to develop a simple idea. The amount of work an artist performs does matter! You have to remember, that any piece of art from an accompolished artist, even if it took him 15 mins to create, is the result of years of training, trial and error, skill development and application of knowledge from practice.
I’ve always like working with encaustic medium because of it’s versatility, the tactile experience of melting, coloring, applying and altering the encaustic wax medium. It’s mostly beeswax traditionally, so painting within it smells quite good, and the paintings themselves continue to have that slightly sweet incense fragrance characteristic of beeswax.
My latest piece uses text. the text was planned and laid out on the computer. A stencil was then made from the computer plan by hand. The stencil was then used to spray paint the rows of letter on a black encaustic background. I am now in the process of carving out the painted letters. The final step will be to rub the painting with paint similar to inking an etching plate.
Why do this? It’s going to look like the surface of an etching plate after inking and before printing. Except, apart for the use of the stencil, it has nothing to do with printmaking.
Title Yellows April 12 2008 Work Date 2008 Medium enamel, tar and spackle on tile over masonite Size h: 12 x w: 12 in / h: 30.48 x w: 30.48 cm