Saturday, January 31, 2015

Black is my new White


I remember when I was in graduate school one of my semester end group crits centered around how I use too much white in paintings.  One critic said it was a crutch and the remaining 15 minutes were spent pointing it out.  Since then I had a heightened consciousness for my use of white, sometimes just indulging it and other times forcing myself to omit it from my palette completely.

Recently I can not get enough of what you might call the opposite.  Blacks and blues that cover.  With white I liked its transparency and even just the gesso white of the board, the pristine, light filled quality.  But I've been finding the rich darks so seductive in their subtlety.  I bought a bunch of different blacks at the suggestion of another painter and it has fed my investigation.


Another thing I find so nice is how it can be dense and deep or flat.  I like the way it pulls a viewer to approach at an intimate distance.

Stray Boy, 2014, Oil on Panel

Detail of an in progress painting

Midnight Remote, 2015, Oil on Panel
 This one and this one too, they were precursors to this obsession.


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