Biogenic Abstract
Tag Archives: surrealism
Magritte-Scape
Portrait in Hall of Windows
Last summer my brother took me to the Magritte show in San Francisco. That being the environment, I was sensitive to the surrealistic images that surrounded me. Instead of ignoring errant reflections, I sought them out. Below is a portrait of my brother Dave at that exhibition.
Dream Image – Killers
I dream repeatedly about a place where I formerly worked. There were two buildings separated by a driveway that led to an open courtyard. In my dream there was a wall of ocean water between the buildings with killer whales thrashing about.
Scale and Hands
Here is another composition in the Joan Miró mode. I have been building a library of icons throughout the years and have been experimenting with ways of arranging them. I prepared the watercolor paper with random washes of pale yellows and blues. On the lower third of the paper I placed a cone with a […]
Taking Pills
Usually, taking pills is no big deal. However, it does take on special significance under certain conditions. For example, doctors have determined that treatment of certain diseases require a cocktail of pills to be given with precise timing. Less drastic, but other very important schedules of pill administrations include antibiotics. When a doctor decides that […]
Forward Progress
I love the crumple series, and will continue painting them for the next several weeks. Today I explore in more detail the technique of scratching the paper before painting. Since I can’t see the lines I make with my sharp implements, I liken this approach to the automatic writing of the Surrealists (Slashes and Painting). In […]
Slashes and Painting
I tried something new today, related to the automatic writing of the Surrealists, I noted in a previous post (Automatism in Crumpled Paper). My thesis was that paper has a predisposition to being crumpled one way or another in cooperation with its human crumpler; this, I posited, was not in disagreement with automatism defined by the Surrealist […]
Automatism in Crumpled Paper
Does paper have an unconsciousness? When one randomly crumples paper, it is a partnership between the paper and the crumpler. The paper has its internal stresses and imperfections and the person who crumples the paper has his or her idiosyncrasies of strength and muscle balance in the hands. The result is a shared unconsciousness, an automatism. […]
The Squeeze
I was in the studio the other morning. I was trying to think like Joan Miró, which is ridiculous because I have no I idea how or what he thought. He grew up in a rural area and farm life was very important to him. My background is not even close. So I embarked on […]
