Balance series

Reception for BYU Art Exhibit

Last night I had my reception for my show that is on campus- which by the way will be up for another week if you couldn't make it yesterday. So much love and support from my friends and family, they're all so great.

 This piece is an installation on miracles that Brittany and I were both a part of.

The small studies came before the big oil paintings. This is the artist statement on the wall going along with my show...

"This body of work began as a group of organic, intuitive, and
expressive paintings on paper. After long battles with my tools, I was
frustrated and directionless with the chaotic and confusing results.
Upon throwing out these disappointments, I noticed some precious
sections within the chaos containing beautiful composition and form.
When complemented with collaged color fields and balancing elements,
they became complete. With a new perspective, in a different context,
they made sense. Had I jumped to painting the large panels and skipped
this essential process, the work would not have evolved or arrived at
the same end result.

I see this process and body of work as a parallel to finding balance,
peace and happiness in our lives.  Happiness requires a certain
harmony and reconciliation with the good and the bad, the positive and
the negative, the expected and the unexpected. The Taoist philosophy
of the yin and yang states that the universe operates through the
interaction of these two opposite yet complementary natural forces.
One is not valued over another, and each is equally vital for the
balanced functioning of the world. While we strive to attain those
experiences that we trust will bring us happiness and joy, the
adversity to come is inevitable. I believe if we can accept this
balance and are willing to see all of our experiences with a refreshed
perspective- and a hope to one day more fully understand them- we can
achieve peace and serenity within ourselves."




I will be having another show at Gallery 468 on April 6th at 5pm. So if you didn't make it last night this is your opportunity to see the show before I move it with me to Portland next month.


Cheers!

Opening reception set for March 16

Mark your calenders my friends. Friday night.

Here is a little look into the beginning stages of some of my paintings. I have been hard at work the past three weeks, and have about a month left.

20 studies project

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I love mixed media and collage. It's kind of become a running joke that my professor Sunny is always telling us to crop down our art, because she always likes certain sections of the art pieces. Well I decided to take that idea and run with it. I painted maybe 6 or 7 larger, somewhat chaotic mixed media pieces, and then cropped them down into nice little paintings just a couple inches big. Each study was then matched with a corresponding magazine page.

You probably recognize this last one from my blog header background. I took this last study and painted it on a 2' x 2' wooden panel. I gave myself the artistic freedom to slightly change or alter the piece where I felt necessary. I plan to do this for all of my studies and hopefully have a show from it all based on the concept of process. Here's the first one.

                                                                2' x 2'

Center Street Provo

This oil series I worked on the past month and a half was based on a really weird building on center street in Provo. It's kind of falling apart, and has this fantastic neon reddish orange netting over certain areas of the more subdued colored building. I wanted to turn this building into paintings more focused on interesting shapes and compositions, while keeping the fact that it's a building somewhat recognizable. I painted in layers to build up some nice textures and colors. I also decided to expose some of the beautiful natural wood of the panel through the painting, it seemed to work with the idea.

                                                                   12" x 12"

                                                                  12" x 12"

                                                                   12" x 12"

                                                                   36" x 36"

Step by Step- oil painting

Lately, I have been taking pictures on my iphone of my oil paintings as they evolve and change. I tend to work in layers, I'm interested in what happens when the paint builds up and also when you start sand back into it. Doing this helps me to see where areas have changed for the better, and perhaps areas where I lost some beautiful information that I want to bring back. Here is a series of photos to show my process in my latest painting. A nice, cropped picture of the final painting soon to come. This panel I made is 3ft x 3ft

 Started out by loosely blocking in color and roughly the areas they belonged to. I love the natural beauty of the wood, and thought it would be nice to expose parts of it in this piece.

 At this point the painting became too precious. I wasn't making progress because I was scared of ruining any little place. So the only option was to obliterate it.

 Working back into it to bring back the image.

 
Just about finished. Because of the mess I made a few steps earlier, I was able to bring out some small and unpredictable details that add a lot overall to this painting.

The inspiration from this piece comes from a run down building in downtown Provo that was really quite quirky and non-sensical. I wanted to look at it more as a flat composition of color, shapes, and line, while still making the fact that it's a building somewhat recognizable. I love weathered architecture, especially when it's really odd and has very unpredictable parts to it. I am a big supporter and believer in small businesses. I think my use of old buildings as subject matter ecetnly is in response to my love for local, family-run, and or small businesses. There is something really fantastic about that whole concept, especially as the world becomes more advanced and more out of touch with it's local community. I want people to appreciate and recognize the beauty of this idea, and hopefully think more about supporting them so their little building doesn't just get demolished to make way for a large, corporate business that will tear down the history of a whole block just to make room for an office building.

Hope you enjoyed this friends. Cheers!