I hope everyone has been doing well. I (personally) have been really excited to see some mildly Spring-like weather begin to descend upon New York City. This last month I have lived something of a monk-like existence, subsisting off hot-mustard-turkey-sandwiches and focusing on my work, my education, and my paintings—with the occasional Vincent Price movie thrown in. The photo above that I am sharing is a moment I caught on my windowsill. The drawing, in charcoal, attempts to capture a strange psychological state I am hoping you all can relate to.
Drawings and prints, 2021
There is an importance to me, to integrate art and artmaking within my personal space. Whether it is surrounding myself with my own work, or the work of artists who have inspired me and kept me (somewhat) sane over the last few decades. Artists who have been inspiring me lately include some of the post-impressionists like Edvard Munch, Félix Vallotton and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. And while I do not see my work as a conduit for expressing the ethos or stylistic sentimentalities of these artists, I feel a poignant personal connection with the worlds these artists inhabited. If I could, I’d leave my modern trappings to visit the dancehalls of the Belle Époque period and glimpse into a fantastic world that inspired artists to paint in that uniquely expressive way.
A recent sketch inspired by Edvard Munch, 2021
Art has a profound power to take us into another world and engages us to view things in a different light. This month, I have been particularly interested in how to approach my artwork differently. Beginning with changing the tools and mediums I am using, having conversations with existing paintings (i.e. asking what those paintings are trying to say through composition, style and color) and seeing what new elements can be taken in and re-expressed. I started painting in oils, which as a watercolor and lithography artist, makes me feel almost like a kid fumbling with a paint set.
I think, as a fine artist, it is important to continually challenge myself and search for external meanings and narratives that can be reimagined in my own work. Even if, at this very moment, it is ultimately unclear what certain newer pieces I am working on are trying to say. Of course, there is perspective, the intention and what one is trying to express in a visual language. But it is also important to question what impact a work has outside of one’s perspective, experience, and symbology.
Death in the Sickroom, Edvard Munch (1893).
As a concluding thought, I am sharing this Edvard Munch painting that particularly resonates with me. I appreciate that intense viridian-like shade overtaking the walls, and also seems to linger within the clothing of the mourning figures. I feel that I can relate to the intimacy of the room, and the strained distance between figures who congregate or stand alone within the enclosed scene.