MURAL PAINTING DIARY. PART TWO

Strong and Silent Mural. 10x20 ft. Acrylic and latex on masonry. 2020
Location: SE Alder St between 14th and 15th Avenues, Portland, OR

Say hi to the babushkas, they are finished and here to stay on this Portland wall for the next three years!

Many many thanks to everyone who's supported this project!

It's been an amazing experience. In a way I can't believe I've never worked this large before. It feels so normal and natural now. And all I can think of is where to find another wall to paint ?

I had to take a break for a week because of the rain. A little drizzle isn't a problem for painting a mural, but the downpours we've been having are problematic for applying water soluable paint to an outside wall.

Thoughts and reflections

I am learning yet again that I am an alla prima painter. Not that all my paintings are done in one session, but my approach to making a painting is to move quickly, making changes in response to what is happening on the surface. Plein air painting is like that as well: gotta chase the light while it lasts, make a gesture in one breath.

I am glad that I created a smaller painting first before approaching my first mural, but for my next one I definitely plan on using my normal studio approach of just winging it. The spontaneity and discovery are too important. Also this larger scale and the public nature of the work demands attention also demands much more thorough consideration.

My image selection is the same as my painting process: intuitive and reactive. I don’t consciously consider too much, I intuitively respond to an image that I find compelling. But making something this large and this permanently installed in a public place makes me feel like I need to take a step back and really consider.

I’ve heard it time and time again that most of contemporary figurative painting is about identity politics. I’ve been toeing that line, dancing around it for a while now. But something about putting my work in a public space pushes me to fully admit that it applies to me. I am working with heritage, cultural inheritance, norms and customs passed through socialization and unconscious absorption from the environment. Painting this mural, and especially stepping back and looking at it now that it’s done, brings into focus the need to clarify and put more words to anchor the images I make.

I paint archetypes, I create my own pantheon. But it’s not a particularly diverse one. Perhaps I am a worshiper of a chthonic matriarchal cult of the crone. 

But then I am not a worshiper either. I bring forth to examine and clarify as much as to pay respects and acknowledge. 

More of an archivist really, whose work is both to preserve and critically examine.

Prints are on their way

For those of you who have selected mural design prints as perks:

I am working with a local fine art printer on the print proofs right now. As soon as I sign off on the proofs, I'll have a better idea about the delivery timeline. 

And for those of you who haven't grabbed one yet, or want another one, please claim them soon. I don't want you to miss out on having your own hand signed and numbered limited edition prints just because the campaign is over.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Fuzzy Logic at Nisus Gallery

Featuring Tatyana Ostapenko, Nicolas Norman, Thomas Putman, Chacha Sands and Julie Webb.

August 16 – 31, 2013

Gallery Hours: Friday – Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00 pm and by appointment
Opening Reception: Friday, August 16 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Nisus Gallery: 8371 N Interstate, Studio 1, Portland, OR

Nisus Gallery is pleased to present Fuzzy Logic.

“In fuzzy logic, exact reasoning is viewed as a limiting case of approximate reasoning. 
In fuzzy logic, everything is a matter of degree.
Any logical system can be fuzzified.”
          — Fuzzy Sets, Fuzzy Logic, and Fuzzy Systems: Selected Papers by Lotfi A. Zadeh

The works in “Fuzzy Logic” were produced in ten weeks by five artists –Nicholas Norman, Tatyana Ostapenko, Thomas Putman, Chacha Sands, and Julie Webb–each responsible for producing 50 paintings. This idea to produce so much in so little time, essentially a painting per workday, was the main prompt of an advanced painting class, The 50 Works Project,  that had been taught for over twenty-five years by Susan Harlan in the School of Art + Design at Portland State University. Though the class was no longer offered, these five students independently found a willing mentor at PSU, Painting Instructor Tia Factor, to guide them through the process. 

The five artists worked closely together in a classroom studio environment, and although each painting was produced by an individual in his or her own style and voice, the ideas behind the paintings relate directly back to the collective. There is a dialogue between the works; two paintings by two different artists may communicate closer than two by the same person. This blurring of authorship parallels the experience of working in a shared studio space: deadlines, days, times and mediums became just as responsible for the ideas in the paintings as the experiences of the artists. 

The sense of Incompleteness is evident — a subject? — in many of the paintings, and the question “Is it finished?” was asked between the artists repeatedly. A layered brushy section with no apparent representation, or an abruptly contrasting space that was at first overlooked are sometimes the most appealing part of the works. By seeking a balance between underdevelopment and control, they intend to pose unanswerable questions about what makes a painting “good”, but mostly to make something interesting to the painter’s eye. 

There are no absolutes in “Fuzzy Logic.”