Photo: With the vintage tin bus. An unlikely but charming pairing.
As an artist, I have a standard for what I am willing to put out there on social media, on my website, or even what I show friends. I have stacks of bad starts and bad paintings that I stash for months or years and revisit when then I need a canvas, collage material or feel brave enough to face them again. I have canvas that has so many starts that the weight of it has doubled. It's a good exercise to go back and look at the "bad guys" and try to see where I was hoping to take it when I started, to establish guidelines for myself on what to avoid and to direct me in future endeavors.
It's a good thing that my paintings rely heavily on exposings the under layers. Texture and colour that peek through the painting are an identifiable part of my style. In fact the underpainting often tells me what to do with the actual painting. It guides and reveals to me shapes and marks, patterns and designs. It is exciting to me when the underpainting gives me a strong lead.
My newest painting "Masai" came from a heavily underpainted ground with many marks and colours, however the paint layers were quite thin and exposed even more layers underneath them. To create a series title "Nomad" has been on my list for a while now. The word Nomad conjures up images of freedom, space, and movement. It does not always mean reclusive or alone, and with this work I wanted to explore Nomad in a tribal sense, part of a greater whole and attempted this with patterns and groupings and colour and balance to express this. Florescent pink is juxtaposed with muddy yellow brown and tinted teal, violet and cobalt blue. Heavy charcoal marks enhance certains shapes but not others, and appear randomly to give the piece some structure.
As a child in Kenya, we sometimes encountered the Masai tribe near my grandparents home in Gilgil near Nakuru. I was entranced by their striking appearance, colorful clothing and the movements of their dance, and their semi-nomadic lifestyle. This painting reflects my interpretation of my memories of the Masai people.
It's not good to fall for one of your paintings so that it would be difficult to part with. This painting will hang in my dining room until a collector falls for it as much as I have. We photographed it this weekend with a vintage model tin bus and I think they are just fabulous together.
Photo: Masai-from my Nomad Series
Photo: When that drip veers to the side all on it's own-my favourite part.
Photo: Exposing the underpainting.