New Collection: "Sunset"

"Sunset"    24" x 18" x 8"
Gouache and High Voltage electricity
on corrugated fiberboard

After my first piece in this collection I decided I needed some new reference material. Seeing as how I really don't have much experience with contemporary art, I decided to branch out to try and find someone to teach me a thing or two. I started with a long conversation with one my friends who is also an artist, currently at school in California. What stuck with me most from the talk were the fragments that seemed almost rehearsed, like they had been repeated to her over and over till they stuck. Strange words like "atmosphere", a metaphor for the foundations of a painting, far removed from my knowledge of atmosphere in its literal sense. Similarly, she told me to move away from geometric shapes, and to allow my art to be expressed beyond the boundaries of the canvas, separate and unconcerned with them.

What I came up with was "sunset", ironically my homage to geometric abstraction. What was important for me in this piece is the relation between the colors and the dynamic edges of the work. The fanning which occurs on three sides of the piece is actually multiple layers of corrugated fiberboard cemented together, this is complemented by the one static edge on the bottom left, and is intended to complicate the boundaries between where my art begins and ends.

The electrical burning creates a deep fissure which runs along the edge of the blue, this depth is a stark contrast between the rising layers of yellow, white, and ultimately red.

My favorite part of this piece is the marbling effect that occurred in the topmost yellow layer: a result of the burning process and other factors.