Director's Commentary

Here's a play-by-play of how this latest painting unfolded.


I started out with a red and yellow ground and built up some arbitrary pockets of colour. Originally, I envisioned the buildings on either side to be depicted in a highly realistic manner but I quickly strayed from that idea. Probably because the research requirements and time restrictions were cramping my style. But I like the monolithic look that I ended up with.


After shading in the walls, I turned my eye to the sea. This was one of those paintings where I got so caught up in the actual process of moving the paint on the canvas that it took me a while to step back and realise that it just didn't look that good. This is definitely pre-epiphany. The colours are so muddy and uncohesive and that pthalo green sticks out like a sore thumb.


At this point I was concerned with revamping the tonal qualities of the piece. I painted over a lot of the darker areas with ultramarine blue. I'd say this was probably the turning point since that change ended up characterising the entire thing.


After going back and looking a lot more closely at Tomory Dodge's work, I actually began to source my visual material instead of basing it on memory. Hence the vertical textures and cross-hatched areas. Also a bigger alteration in terms of the way the brush strokes actually looked.


The final touches consisted of darkening the shadows and adding in the surfer and sky. I knew I wanted the latter to retain that reddish colour and ended in shading in a crude cloud structure to complement the light-to-dark transitions along the walls. The surfer was a bit tricky and took me a few times but I ended up using a bit more violet in the blacks to subtly make him pop.

That's about it. Sorry if this ended up sounding self-congratulatory and pretentious. But hey, what can you do.

Red Sky Diaries

Here's my landscape painting. It's been two weeks in the making -- kind of a visual combination of "Point Break", "Apocalypse Now", and "The Road", I guess. Actually, the style is a direct emulation of Tomory Dodge. I was looking to capture those really visible and deliberate brushstrokes.

Untitled, 120 x 60 cm
Oil paint on canvas
Painted September 2009

Here is a detail shot ... just because:


I'm quite pleased with how it all turned out because at one stage (as is always the case) I was ready to turn this canvas into kindling.

Cahulawassee Blues

Here's the concept board for my latest painting project. We have to create a landscape image that relates to the relationship between man and nature. At first I wasn't enthused at all, because let's face it: landscapes suck. However, looking at the wide range of contemporary artists out there working on the subject (Lisa Sanditz, Sharon Ellis, Amy Chan, etc) really inspired me.


This is kind of my own surrrealist take on that kind of introspective "Apocalypse Now"/"Heart of Darkness" trip down the river. I want to transpose the claustrophobia of the jungle into a delapidated urban setting. I picture the character kind of quietly paddling down this empty flooded ghetto; sort of a tourist in an ambiguously post-apocalyptic scenario. He's actually taken from a photo my brother took of a river surfer in France.


I'm currently fixated on the work of contemporary American artist Tomory Dodge (see: above). The way he crafts his compositions out of these haphazard rectangles of colour is amazing. And I really dig the allusive qualities of his subject matter. Definitely the primary inspiration behind this current piece.

I'll post more updates in the coming week. Right now I'm currently trying to assemble my first canvas -- that is, cutting the wood, fitting it together, and stretching the canvas. Good stuff.