PAINTINGS BY THERESA

Thursday, January 8, 2009

"Food for thought"

As with most Artists, it is very difficult to talk about my work. Art is a language in and of itself and any translation falls pitifully short of actually viewing the work. Interpretation of an artpiece can not ignore what the viewer brings to the image. So I choose to merely guide you through my thought processes.

The first of my personal works here is called "Food for Thought" (Although its first title was "Round Peg Square Hole"). Medium: Oil on canvas, size: 24" X 36".

The painting began with taking a photo of my son Jack exploring his world with a fuzzy plastic ball. I was fascinated with how uninhibited he was while playing with the ball. He very quickly found new ways to experience the tactile nature of the ball and was very proud of his clever new use for it.

As I studied the photograph, I wondered why this image struck me as being so fascinating. Which led me to think about how we as humans, especially in modern times, struggle with living in our mind vs. living in the sensual, physical world. How are we evolving psychologically as human beings? How do we connect our natural (primitive) self with the technological, or conceptual, self we are creating in modern times.

And so this is how an idea begins. And as the weeks go on, you will find that I struggle to distill the subject and my composition to its purest and most unified form.

Food for Thought 5

The Japanese lace paper that is beginning to emerge is a by-product of how we think of trees and leaves. So in the case of this painting I have used it as a screen or a filter by which we see nature. I keep the basic beginning divisions of that area of the canvas. but I abandon the flat "Mondrian" abstraction of the house's interior. I also am drawn to the textures and patterns I see coming out of China's Art community and the lace paper is an excuse to pay tribute to that genre (even though the paper is Japanese in origin). It is an image that I have used over many years and have made part of own personal symbolism.

Food for Thought 7

I added the element of a Shinto gate to further my message of our connection with nature. In one of the origin myths of Shintoism the goddess of the sun became annoyed with her trickster brother and hid in a cave, rolling a big rock in front of the cave and leaving the world dark. Fearful that the world would stay dark the people built a huge bird perch (the Torri) to attract many birds. When the goddess peeked out to hear the birds sing a sumo wrestler pushed the boulder from the cave and the goddess came out and the world was bright again. In the Shinto myth the gate as a bird perch fits in with the mocking birds in my painting, both with the physical connection and the metaphoric. On a personal level, it also reminds me of my grandfather who was an accomplished amateur gardener and bee-keeper.