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Cleanliness
Is Next To Godliness, 2005,
15 by 12 inches, Oil on Canvas |
November
2005 to January 2006- Click
here to see the creation of this work.
Sticking with my theme of accidents/injury as a transcendental experience,
I chose a falling scene. I also wanted to do this within an everyday
scene unlike many of my images that take place in my studio, which is
an everyday place for an artist, but not for anyone who isn't an artist.
I am in the process of cleaning my bedroom which is where I do most
of my reflecting, as many people do as they try to go to sleep. On a
personal level this painting is my reflection on who I am, where I've
been and where I am now, artistically and personally. The image on my
shirt is from a drawing I did in highschool, that was later turned into
a shirt for a Philadelphia area Thrash/Death metal act, Final Prayer.
The painting on the
right (you can only make out the frame and a bent arm) is from my
first truly creative period in college. Not that the vacuum itself is
a painting, but it represents the shaky period after college and right
before grad school when I really wanted to make a painting about cleaning
(see what became of
that). Vacuums are strange machines. They look very much like legless
scorpions and they make terrrible noise.I imagine there is some level
of hell that consists only of vacuums. The carpet (which is actually
sitting on top of the bed) was a wedding gift and the wall hanging on
the right (which is barely visible) was a gift for our first anniversary.
This image also pertains to my marriage because my role is now, and
has been off and on during our marriage,the primary homemaker. I have
come a long way as a husband in this regard. And speaking of long ways,
I also meant to reference our recent relocation to Massachusetts in
more ways than simply depicting our bedroom in Massachusetts. I based
this image partially off of Vermeer. Vermeer frequently featured maps
in his works to allude to the greater world and time and space outside
of the intimate interiors he depicted. On the wall directly behind my
foot is a map of the North East. If you could see the map, you would
make out that my foot is positioned approximately over southern New
Jersey and South Eastern Pennsylvania, and Greenfield is marked with
a black dot. This image was a departure from what I am accustomed to
making. The space is much tighter than I normally choose, the angle
of perspective much more extreme, and the lighting head on rather than
at a 45 degree angle to the subject. These departures made this a challenging
and informative painting for me. I was influenced by a few paintings
and artists' work, which I discuss below. I also listened/read to a
number of books. The Decameron, The Prince, The Praise of Folly, Utopia,
Paradise Lost and Don Quixote.
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I
borrowed a lot from this picture. The most important feature was the lighting.
The room is illuminated by a window or possibly doorway which is directly
in front of the woman/scene. The light therefore shines perpendicularly
to the picture plane. This type of lighting makes creating depth tricky.
Shadows establish depth much clearer than color alone. Frontal lighting
casts shadows directly behind the subject, so shadows aren't visible.
The artist/viewer need to use other types of cues to determine/establish
the depth of the scene. The chair in the lower right foreground is there
to give the viewer a landmark to firmly establish the space between the
viewer and the girl sitting at the table. Without this chair, the image
would appear much flatter. It establishes depth by showing the same chair
close (big) and the farther away (smaller). He also uses the patterning
on the rug. One can assume that the patterning is relatively uniform throughout
the rug, so the larger forms in the rugs design must be closer than the
similar forms that are smaller but closer to the figure. I tried to keep
these tricks in mind while painting my image. I also borrowed other characteristics
other than the lighting. I used the act of sleeping (I'm falling or in
ecstasy (?)). The carpet on top of a piece of furniture. An object in
the lower right to establish depth and a doorway to one side of the figure.
A scroll like wall hanging (top right, most likely a map). And of course,
Ambiguity. Honestly, what isn't ambiguous about this painting? Click on
the picture to see what the Met has to say about this painting. |
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The
Conversion of Saul
1600
Oil on canvas, 230 x 175 cm
Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome |
Caravaggio’s
Conversion of Saul, was one of the great Caravaggio’s I got to study
up close in Rome. As soon as I conceived of my theme of pain and ecstasy,
this image immediately came to mind. In fact my painting was originally
going to be me falling in our school's barn, with the horse I was riding
for lessons at the time featured in the background. Good ol' Worthy. I
decided not to pursue it because it seemed as if it would simply look
like me falling off a horse, but that is exactly what Caravaggio was accused
of when he made this painting. Without knowing the story of St. Paul,
this image looked very much like a simple stall accident, however this
is the moment that Saul was blinded by a vision and knocked off his horse.
Theology aside, even though the image does seem at first glance like someone
simply falling off a horse, there is something about the peaceful facial
expression and outstretched arms that indicates otherwise. It was this
image that gave me my primary model for my pose in my painting. I also
had a well known Bernini sculpture that I studied in Rome in mind as well.
St.
Therese in Ecstacy... |
