Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Studio #3 - Basement studio - 3219 Lyndale

My third art studio in Minneapolis was in the basement of an apartment building.  I had a 20' x 20' space with 30' ceilings and a tiny window at the top.  As with all of my studios, I spent weeks prepping, cleaning, building, and arranging the place until I was ready to paint.

I created my chrome works in this studio, and really not much else.  I worked on my large texture chrome paintings for almost a year before I was happy with them.  Living here was not uneventful, as I created one of my masterworks (or so I think it is).  Enjoy the pics.





At the time I was so proud of this painting that upon completing it I sat and stared at it for over a month.  That might sound excessive, but it was so different, and so new that I had to be sure it was as good as I believed it to be.  When you create something that you truly believe a masterwork, it is hard to accept at first.  You stare at it and evaluate its worth, your worth, and how it is going to be received.



Boots in the studio.

Greg.


Thanks for spending some time here...
...keep checking back I will post more soon.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Artwork of the month by Piet Mondrian

There are two artists that I look toward for their mastery of the philosophy of abstract oil painting. Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian; both masters of their craft and shaman philosophers of modern art.

There are four Mondrian paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that I have spent years meditating on.  I have read everything Mondrian has written, and rarely disagreed with his thesis.   His work has inspired me and pushed me to be honest with my work, helping me see my visual language as my own.



Piet Mondrian
Dutch, 1872-1944
"Composition with Blue, Red, Yellow, and Black"
1922, oil on canvas


"Red Gladioli"
1906, Oil on canvas

"Irises"
1910, oil on canvas

"Composition with Blue and Red"
1932, oil on canvas

The MIA hardly ever puts this painting out on display.  I have only seen it twice.


"All painting – the painting of the past as well as of the present – shows us that its essential plastic means we are only line and color."
-Piet Mondrian.


Friday, February 2, 2007

1.2 The abstract oil painter

1.2_The abstract oil painter

The defining attribute of an oil painter is that he use oil paint, anything beyond that one simple canon closes the door of inventiveness on the oil painter forever.  The discipline of oil painting is less limited than the other forms of art.  Nevertheless, do not be fooled by undefined intolerance, all art is of significant importance to its creators and audience.  To become an abstract oil painter is, in part, a choice; and to continue in life as an oil painter is a dedication made from the artist's passion.  It is a self-disciplined, obsessive, selfish path in its very nature, that cannot be obtained in a year or in ten.  The path of the abstract oil painter is a professional trade that becomes the disciplined pursuit of a lifetime.  I say that it is a choice because the artist will naturally develop toward abstraction the longer he creates works of art.

The abstract oil painter paints by way of his intuition, allowing it to guide him.  The intuitive artist sees the world through the perception of his own philosophy, without social influence.  He is free, liberated from the physical world but bound to its social cooperation.  The intuitive mind of the abstract oil painter is concerned only with his life's work of painting, and does not create works of art for effortless decoration.  For him, works of art are a means to reconcile all ideas, inner thoughts, and philosophical questions, as the oil painter examines every inch of every painting he dedicates himself to that insight he witnesses within his work.  He cannot be distracted from the path that chose him, having such passion for his work that everything, even the mundane acts of daily existence, are obsessively calculated movements toward competing his work.  The oil painter, led by his intuition, is unaffected by critique and all public intrusion.  He envisions praise and disdain as one, external and therefore irrelevant to his path.  High ideals intrinsically predetermine the method and vision of each artist.

The other type of artist is an ornate artist.  Following the trends of his time aesthetically as to be seen within what is popular, and what is socially gratifying.  The ornate fame and fortune driven artist will adorn his socially satisfactory aesthetic in soulless self-gratification and vague personal jokes as pointless works of art created without purpose or passion.  The ornate artist is painting merely for the sake of painting.  

You can never judge the skill and ineptitude of the artist without looking at the artist's life choices.  The intuitive artist is simply doing what drives him, and creating works of art for tomorrow to admire, as he attempts to rationalize and communicate his understanding of the nature of his ideas; and if honest within his work, is at first and at best, misunderstood.  It does not matter what quality the work is, only that the oil painter continue to work, and by continuing, if the artist is true to his nature, the quality of work will progress.  Eventually and inevitably the intuitive artist will become a master at his chosen discipline.