Tag: Terrible Beauty

Terrible Beauty (for Laurie Lipton)

I was supposed to do a short trip as to take photos for my next Cinefield®, but circumstances beyond my control pushed it back. With no raw fuel for next Cinefield® I have spent some of my time painting.

As to keep things fresh, I keep changing the size and type of paper but also the subject matter. With so much time before I can get my shots, were I to just keep doing portraits it would start to become mechanical or feel akin to putting together Ikea furniture.

My last painting was a traditional portrait with straight up compositional balance. When mulling over what to do next I decided I wanted to do something beautiful but sort of off-putting too. I was very pleased with the results.

I dedicated this to Laurie Lipton. I have been into her works for about a year. What makes her special aside from her massive chops is that in her oeuvre the medium of pencil is the star. It is not second class citizen nor merely something to train with between painting.

Although nowhere near her level, viewing her works has made me up my shading game (which definitely improved).

Often her pieces have a mordant bent to them but you have to do a double take on some of them before this is apparent. Existentially tortured housewives and queues of skeletons conjured up by her hand are beautiful but also induce a sort of dread.

My piece is not an image taken directly from her body of work. Laurie’s work was starting point for me, the inspiration for having dichotomy of terrible but beautifully done.

Terrible Beauty is 7×10 watercolor on French cotton paper.

by Wayne Wolfson

Cupid Disguise

Read enough biographies on artists and regardless of medium and era a commonality becomes apparent. It is what I call The Sweet Spot. This is the time when the struggle/work for the artist to achieve their distinctive voice has been achieved. All the work which goes towards fostering the skill to do so now takes no more effort to motivate into action than a health habit. And there is now an audience which gets rid of the abstracted “someday,,,” aspect the lack of which causes the “Why am I doing this again?”.

There is an audience but not so big that the artist, even if only on a subconscious level, incorporates into the equation all the expectations of fans, critics and gallerists. There is the luxury of being able to work and experiment giving no thoughts to consequence.

More often than not, the artist recognizes this golden age only after they are well past it. If lucky, in old age they may get a second shot once established as an institution or national treasure but this is not always guarantied.

I feel fortunate, for among other things, recognizing that i am in the sweet spot. I decided to try a bunch of new things for this painting. Why not? I am very pleased with how it turned out. To me, it does not look radically different from my other paintings despite all new things I tried.

Cupid Disguise 11×17 Watercolor & Paper

by Wayne Wolfson

Female of the Species

My sculptures are an acquired taste, which I am fine with. The personal appeal of then for me is in their looseness. Unlike my other visual mediums, there is a large component of improvisation to them. Materials help dictate composition.

Currently I am in middle of two projects which are taking up the lion’ share of space in my studio. I can not start a new Cinefield®. I do miss process. I knew that I could do a regular collage and it would not encroach upon other things going on space & time wise.

This is a collage, not Cinefield® because unlike the later, I did not create the base images. Rarely now do I work in the medium of collage utilizing images not from pictures which I personally took. Like my sculptures, this gave me the same pleasure derived from loose improvisation. This rare occurrence of using other’s images is akin to jazz great playing a standard, someone else’s melody providing the frame work for their voice to flow.

The piece is 7×10 inches. No digital magic just scissors & adhesive applied with a brush.

Female of the Species

It is not often that I mention things of mine available for purchase. I have teamed up with a great framer & photo lab to produce a series of extremely limited edition Cinefield® prints. The info can be found here. Once they are gone, that is it.

http://www.waynewolfson.com/works-for-sale

by Wayne Wolfson

Birthday

I have noticed lately that there are a lot of museum shows & installations “walk through a van Gough painting” type of things using projections and other tech. I am sure this will attract revenue. For anything which is lazy, bad or dare I say plebeian, there are intelligent people out there ready to supply articulation as to justify it. The gimmick as (art) museum show; “This will attract those who don’t usually go to museums.” It is not so much bringing culture to those who normally would not bother but rather a transmutation of it into something akin to the latest block buster movie.

The problem with this is that it makes the artist/work besides the point. It is spectacle as focus and not artist work/intent. The deeper problems with this, as it is many people can not stand in line to get their coffee without keeping their head bent down in their phones as to be blasted by digi-sensations as to distract them from their five minute wait. A Picasso-laser show type thing is further contributing to a complete lack of the public’s ability to “merely” stand and look at a work of art. All art regardless of era and medium has a component of contemplation to it. We are perhaps a few years away from people going to one of the great museums of the world, standing in front of an immortal piece; a Renoir, a Velazquez et al impatiently waiting for the razzle-dazzle to begin.

When reading about art, depending upon where you live, there is a lack of the ability to go out and actually see the painting or works by a specific artist. The internet is good to look something up and get the gist of it, but it can not compete with the real thing. There is a difference. Looking at works mainly online, going to mutli media mutations of an artist’s work have changed what looks “right” or “good” to a modern art audience. They do not want to see brush strokes or other evidence of an artist’s hands which are a part of their voice. A smooth machine like perfection as encountered online, on postcards is what is now preferred.

One could imagine Soutine talking to a gallery owner or museum director and being told “Don’t worry, we will smooth down the rough edges digitally…”

You can’t fight progress nor the populist bent but merely offer an alternative for this willing to explore. The ability to portray flesh in all its beautiful imperfections is something I will never tire of.

“Birthday” watercolor on tan paper 11×14

by Wayne Wolfson

Black Shirt

For me, truth will always be equated to beauty. It is the imperfections of someone you find yourself caring for (or desiring) that your mind calls forth when thinking of them. That crooked smile, a small scar on the chin from scratching too much during bout of childhood chickenpox. Traditional beauty, the yardstick many use in their aesthetic aspirations becomes generic and boring very quickly.

When the more casual art fan is given a bit of art history, almost always a shorthand is used. The impressionists are reduced down to a bunch of guys with beards who used seductive colors in a lush, hazy sort of way. This was one aspect of it. They were the first (building off of their immediate predecessors Courbet 1819-77, Millet 1814-75) to be showing people as they were. There was no idealization of the denizens of the boulevards and theaters. The paintings are stunning but one encounters broken capillary noses, clothes that need laundering, eyes with lids heavy from lack of sleep. It was the real, every day life as they encountered it, caught on canvas.

Since then, every single painter did not stick to this direction. The impressionists freed up art and from aspects of what they did has sprung a multitude of genres, sub genres. But, there will always be a section of painters out there capturing real life with their brushes and pencils. A favorite painter of mine, Wayne Thiebaud is often lumped in as a “Pop Artist-Painter” because of his subject matter, cakes & candies (his portraits are among some of modern paintings best and he should be better known for these). What makes pop art is not what is portrayed but rather an ironic coolness. Thiebaud is not aiming for this but in the tradition of the impressionist portraying his life and what is in front of him.

One of my first times going to the Musée d’Orsay, a painting which held me before it, showed a man in red pajamas not looking very well as he lay covers pulled up almost to his chest. His skin was very pale but with waxy yellow undertones and little suggestions of green. You know things most likely are not going to end well for him and the painting itself is unpleasant to look at but also beautiful in its execution.

One of my greatest pleasures in life is portraying flesh in my painting. I never want to lapse into mannerisms though and so constantly challenge myself. I portray flesh in all its varieties, hot from a blush, pale from sickness, bruised from some mishap. One of the best self portraits I have done and which is frequently used as my author’s photos shows me with a black eye I got. There is no program or symbolism in any of this for me. For this piece, although one could look at it as encompassing all of 2020, it was just meant as a challenge to myself to show one person’s very bad day, the truth being beautiful in its honesty and execution. Terrible beauty.

Black Shirt Watercolor & Paper 9×12

by Wayne Wolfson

Cuba

Watercolor & paper 5.5×8.5

 

The best artwork in any medium we can return to over and over again. We find new aspects revealed in it.

The work seems to, with the passage of time change. It is not the work which is ever in flux but ourselves. Better works have multiple layers of enjoyment  and so seemingly keep up with us on the evolutionary journey of intellect/taste/spirit.

With my work, this is why my main goal and raison d’e tre is conveying emotion. No matter what the social mores or trends are, we all will continue to feel sorrow & ecstasy.

 

Cuba

 

by Wayne Wolfson

Bee Curtain

She repeatedly stuck her tongue out for almost every piece that she posed for. It was not my thing and I believe that she was thinking of someone else.

With every person that I draw/paint/sketch I aim for a truth but only a truth of that moment. What they look like, their likeness there and then.

The same person appearing over the course of several (or many) pieces may look slightly different each time.

This is a phenomenon naturally occurring in real life. Me sitting next to you in a car going down the highway will look different than me sitting across from you in a cafe etc etc.

This has to do with the effects played upon the subject by mood, health and ambient environment.

I avoid photo realism which to me can be flat, in favor of it looking like the subject but as occurring in art.
Where once this was the de rigeur , in the digital age this is all too often forgotten. We want an exactness that is the camera’s job not the brush nor pen.

The dynamics between artist & model is as if the artist is talking about the model using their own words (words being their style) and hands.
W.Wolfson

Bee Curtain watercolor & cotton paper 10×14

 

beecurtain

by Wayne Wolfson

Poem

Watercolor & 7×10 Cotton Paper

Compelling works of art regardless of medium, allow one to return to them again and again without diminished enjoyment. Another point of pleasure is in the ability to find new things in a previously enjoyed work.

In painting, especially the representation of flesh, this opportunity is ever present.
I get pleasure from portraying not just volume and mass, but also creating a sense of depth on what started out as a blank white square.

While I could accomplish similar feats in representing say a piece of fruit, skin allows to for the suggestion of heat as in a blush, motion as in composition of limbs and what is hinted at in the purple-blue of veins.
For the viewer to come away with any sense of this after looking at my work is the greatest achievement for me.

 

Poem

 

 

 

by Wayne Wolfson

End of Night scrap paper work

Very end of night, quick sketch on the back of grocery list (5×4) using waitress pen. I mix my subject matter as i never want w/my work to become the “. . .” guy.

 

For any artist, the actual work is a souvenir of the inspiration & process. The true joy & battle lay within that, with the tangible result akin to the ripple  radiating outwards.

 

20180303_080741

by Wayne Wolfson

Two Drawings

I draw every day, regardless of where in the world I am. My ever present companion is my pocket sketchpad. Even after finishing a painting, that night I will still spend an hour or so drawing.

I will do fully realized pieces but also sometimes fill pages with endless sketches of lips, breasts, eyes and especially hands.

“Woodshedding” it is akin to musicians practicing scales. Some pieces from my pocket pads are fully realized and have been sold, while others are just results of a night’s or cafe visits woodshedding. Both feel equally pleasurable & important to me.

 

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by Wayne Wolfson