Influences

I was going through images of some of my works in progress this evening and was struck by the influence of my visit to the Sean Scully show at the Phillips in January. Several things about that show had a huge impact on me. The first was the smell of the paintings. I have been to many galleries and seen many shows, but never have I been almost assaulted by the smell of fresh paintings. There were some paintings in this show from the 90s, but the largest part of the show was work from this century. Stepping off the elevator into the first room of the show I was blown away by the size of the first work I saw. I knew they were big, but knowing and experiencing is different. Then after some time wandering from piece to piece the shock of the size and the luminous beauty of the work gave way to inspection of the details. It's what I live for, delving beneath the surface. Scully's paintings are a feast for my soul. The layers of color beneath the surface peek through, hinting at what lies beneath, tantalizing the imagination. Imagine a victorian woman dressed all in black but at the hem of her dress a hint of red lace peeks out. What things you could imagine about the woman who wears such vivid color beneath her somber attire!

While I have been layering color a lot in my recent works, I don't hide much. You see all of the layers and there is something satisfying to me about revealing what lies beneath. However, when I was working on Despecho, I ended up mostly obscuring what lay beneath. There was something intensely satisfying about showing some of the inner pain and things outside the person that affects his or her world while keeping the deepest things hidden, as we often do.

Despecho is definitely not about a person wearing their heart on their sleeve.