Fastbreak

Here's the initial paint-sketch I worked off of. I always start my paintings as if they were line drawings, which I guess explains why I end up with a relatively graphic look at the end.


Here's the final piece after a few more adjustments. My bloody camera still isn't capturing the colours on the back wall which is fairly annoying, but oh well, what can you do.

Do It For The Kids

My latest painting. Sort of a thematic continuation of the last one I did. At least insofar as the subject matter is similarly derived from a movie still (i.e. a scene from Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men). Again, I wanted to supplant the importance of the image's original context with a greater sense of painterly atmosphere and narrative ambiguity.

Untitled, 150 x 120 cm
Oil paint on canvas
Painted November 2009

This is the largest painting I've worked on to date. It was a lot of fun having so much space to move the brush around, but of course that also meant that I had to fill it all. A couple of nagging issues -- I had trouble rendering the female character's face given that I wanted the emphasis to be placed on the body language in the piece. I'm thinking that I'll go back in and add a little more darks to it. Likewise, I still have to properly render the hand just to the right of the central figure's head. At the moment, it looks like a minced hamburger patty.

While I'm griping, I'd like to also add that this isn't the greatest photograph in the world. The back wall isn't quite that acidic looking in real life; it's a lot cooler and more subdued.

Ah, well. I'm going to go back to the studio right now to fix all this. So hopefully that'll mean that a follow-up post is shortly on the way.

Tardy

This is getting to be a bad habit, but once again I'm going to apologize for the inconsistent posting. I actually finished a painting for a crit today but there's one area that just irks me and I don't want to post any pictures up until I fix the bloody thing. Yeah, I'm a little bit anal.


This here's a test run for a silkscreen that I made a couple of weeks ago. For some reason I never posted it. I haven't played around with it as much as I want to but eventually I'll run the thing in a variety of colours over some painted grounds.

"Tomorrow Ain't Promised To No One"

Apologies for the lax posting. I was in a Philly for a while and got a bit sidetracked.

Here's my latest painting. Aside from the undercoats, it was done in a two day marathon session (ah, deadlines).

Keema, 150 x 90 cm
Oil paint on canvas
Painted October 2009

The actual image is an appropriation of a still from the HBO show "The Wire" (good viewing, check it out). But the artistic inspiration behind this piece was Peter Doig's work -- and in particular, his painting "Grasshopper" [below]. Love that texture!


It's not necessarily evident in the above piece, but I love the way that Doig mutates pop-culture imagery beyond any kind of purely figurative reading. He robs the viewer of any context, instead relying on that mystery of place to create an atmosphere of cultural nostalgia. What happened right before this point in time? And just after? I also really like how he relies on body language rather than facial expressions, as well as how he'll often completely abandon his initial reference entirely. On a technical level, I love Doig's stubbornly horizontal brushstrokes. He typically employs a three-tiered set of bands in his work (as seen above) which is something that I tried to replicate (without making it too harshly evident).

I actually had a lot of fun painting this one despite the time crunch. Next up is a 4 x 5 foot canvas, oof.

H.I.G.O.

I can't wait for this album to drop. Even without Hub on the bass, even looking past the fact that they fell in with Jimmy Fallon of all people, The Roots are still the meanest motherfuckers on stage.



If I can scrape enough cash together I want to check their show at the Highline Ballroom in NYC later this year. Lupe wowed me live earlier this year but The Roots still hold the crown.

Les Hommes d'FIFA

Just finished this painting for a project revolving around "flat space". I wanted to emulate the flatness of traditional Japanese composition using an image taken from the 2006 World Cup (that's Michael Ballack rising up for the header).

Untitled, 90 x 120 cm
Oil paint on canvas
Painted October 2009

I wanted to take some risks and really push myself on this one and while I am glad that I did I definitely have a lot of issues with the final product. Things just did not go well right off the bat -- the canvas didn't stretch particularly tight; my initial sketch was plagued with horrible anatomy; etc. I wanted to employ a range of mark-making in this sort of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon composition but the whole thing just feels rushed and scrappy.

Noir

Just looking back at some old photos I took. I snapped this image on a tram in Melbourne. The old folks shot me a dirty look afterward but it was too good to pass up.


I really miss my Nikon F2 and am kicking myself for not bringing it with me (I opted for the D70 because it's more practical ... ugh). There's just something soulless about having a delete button on a camera.