Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Portrait of Kate

Portrait of Kate Scallion (With an Onion for a Head), 20" by 26", oil on canvas, 2013

Some thoughts on seeing

I like what David Hockney has to say about how the way we experience our world is influenced by the way a photograph depicts it. A photograph is an extension of Renaissance perspective in that it represents the world seen via one point of view: like on a tripod. Hockney used various photocollage experiments to show a more "cubist" way of seeing: through time and space, different views, closeup far away, focus on important things like signs, faces, eyes. I think that this is more "true" to how we see. Memory and selective vision are much more a reflection of the eye and mind than what the photograph can capture.
I'm a fine art painter. I love paint. Paint is liquid thought about the visible world. Even abstract painting (that comes from within the painter) is influenced by what is seen (the paint moving on the canvas and reacting to it etc). I'm interested in exploring this more cubist notion of multiple views that are collected into one image that hopefully will lead to a more "complete experience" of the subject.
Here's one way of doing it.
David Hockney, A Visit with Christopher and Don, Santa Monica Canyon 1984
And here's another way
Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar