FOUR DIVIDED BY THREE, acrylic on canvas, 16×16
I ALMOST NEVER paint inside a square. But recently I received a six-pack of 16×16 canvases when I was expecting 16×20. Oh well. It’s a good challenge, and I am trying to make the best of it.
Each of these is a form of rebellion. There is design and a logic to what I do, but I will not be put in a box.
Triple Decker in particular carries this form conversation to a new level, literally. It feels like its a puzzle, a landscape, as if there is water or a stream here and there.
Moonrise is also really cool, the colors both vibrant and contemplative!
Many thanks. It’s amazing how a a modest change in shape can challenge the senses.
I’m always fascinated by how some artists can convey a wide distant landscape in a square! Christopher Volpe or Doug Fryer.
I like your triple decker, here. It’s as if you were trying to break through the ceiling.
Thank you, Christine. I did not know either Volpe’s or Fryer’s work, and I see what you mean. Very impressive. I’ll keep trying, but I think the square does not suit me!
The first two are really funny. Four divided by three looks like a gang of calculators getting ready to rob a candy store while Triple Decker looks like a wacky parking garage, funny though it also brought to mind that apartment building that collapsed in Florida. I enjoyed both of these pictures. Moonrise is beautiful, but I’m not fond of the way the composition is so evenly divided in half.
Thank you for the feedback, Arch. I appreciate it. I consider all three paintings playful (maybe the dimensions are playing with me!). All three paintings use mathematics (I like that you see calculators! Another person said sushi. I am reminded of old British phone booths, or the “cake fridge” I recently saw in the program “Shetland.”). “Four Divide by Three” shows the absurdity of reducing life and its problems to rational formula; “Triple Decker” could be a grid enlarged a thousand times, undermining the conceit of straight lines. “Moonrise,” with its redundant composition, is another way of expressing that even though we try to make order of the chaos, it’s not possible, and in most instances the chaos is far more complex and interesting. That’s how I am feeling about painting within squares! We’ll see what the next three bring.