www.michaelgardnerart.com
I am finishing preparing for The Artist Project NY. I have nine new paintings done, and one left to finish. I had previously painted 10 large oil paintings in 2009 on canvas. These paintings were based on the small watercolor studies I did back in 2001, from polaroids I took of daily life in New York. Manhattan to be exact. A month after the 9-11 attacks to be timely precise. I took the polaroids as I wandered about the city. I love polaroids, something about them makes for a perfect time-capsule of a moment in a way that I don't find in 35mm or digital pictures. I think part of that notion is based on Andy Warhol's polaroid work. Part of it comes from my work in high fashion, where you polaroid the model as the final look is established and becomes the reference for the runway. Part of it comes from making the daily bible in TV or film. Polaroiding the actor in their look for a particular scene, noting what is worn and how in the event you need to re-shoot. A snapshot of that exact moment. So I was for me, trying to hold onto those days shortly after this singularity of 9-11. Trying to remember what life was like before and not yet ready to digest what was now. In fact now was now post the event, and life was moving along as it had to. We are always trying to keep All of It in status quo, but God doesn't work that way. All That Is uses evolution to express itself, and evolving is in my mind doing God's work. Allowing yourself to grow and change. Accepting events, the momentum of life, and change as the only permanent status we actually have. It took me nearly 10 years to allow myself to make the large scale paintings of The Shells, as was always my intent, from the small delicate watercolor studies. When I finally did, I was living in Los Angeles and had my studio downtown. Downtown Los Angeles; where Hollywood comes to film all the outside "N.Y." scenes due to the buildings and facades they dress up to appear as the real place, when they can't or won't go to N.Y. to film, and where I found myself on the 10th floor of a building in my studio listening to the noise of the city below. The same noise any large city would produce. It could be N.Y. sound-wise with sirens, busses, and various loud pedestrian antics rising up to my open window just like the wolves I used to listen to howling down 8th Avenue in Hells Kitchen where I lived when I started this project. It was the perfect time to paint The Shells.
A few months ago I applied for and was invited to participate in The Artist Project NY, and I knew it was time to show these paintings, and in the city they were meant to be shown. I wanted to paint some smaller pieces for the show. A new reflection on The Shells that moved the series forward in another way. I came across Andy Warhol's Reversals, and realized that I wanted to look at these paintings in this inward style. I wanted to make the background as important as the foreground "action" of the figures, if not stronger. In this way I hope to show how ephemeral and transient the Moments are, and drive home what I learned after 9-11. Life is precious, fleeting, and fragile. We are all but shells, and like a shell hard and beautiful, but surely Time will wear down the shell and but a grain of sand will remain. And as William Blake wrote long before:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
Geranium Shell
Oil, Oil Stick on Canvas
44" x 60"
Fuschia Shell/Reversal
Oil, Oil Stick on Canvas
18" x 30"
In my studio in prep for the show. New paintings.
The Shells/Reversals
Oil, Oil Stick on Canvas
18" x 30" each
No comments:
Post a Comment