Back to Benozzo: the Journey Continues

After a few months of still-life practice, fantasy has swept me up again. Bought a big, sturdy canvas last week. I figure it's finally time to get this painting out of my system! It's a reimagining of my old muse, Benozzo Gozzoli's Procession of the Magi. Had it in my head for a long time. What I'm aiming for is something complex, kitschy, something that melds my apartment, my frustrations and a sense of 'process' with the fantastic landscape inside my head.

"Say, Kitty- what are your thoughts about this new project?"

On the left, me. On the right, a Medici fellow on his noble steed by Gozzoli.

Cheerful Ruin: response to Saturday's critique

I can't deal with perfection. I like it, I appreciate it, but whenever I make something nice looking I want to mess it up good. I can't help meddling. I pull stray pieces of my hair free after I put it up in a bun and I want to put sneakers on every time I wear a dress. I want to adopt the very ugliest puppy in the window. It's probably kind of messed up.

Now that I've realized this ruinous tendency isn't going away, I'm going to try to push it further-- until these pictures are about something more than a 'still-life'. This might mean wrecking them more confidently, so that they're about destructive impulses in general. Or increase the level of strangeness, so there's more ambiguity and makes you ask questions. I don't know... but I'm going to keep looking for stories and see where it takes me.

There was too much pathos in this one. Replaced my head with my halloween costume, a paper plate mask ('Finn' from Adventure Time with Finn and Jake!)  Hoping the tension between the happy face and the pile of stuff will produce a more ambiguous narrative.

This was based on a Matisse composition. I think of it as the art room after dusk, with cool rejected kids' drawings taking on another life. Is that story being conveyed? I don't know yet.

New drawing. Can you guess which side of the bed is mine and which belongs to my boyfriend Jon?

Critique #3 with Liz Thach

On Saturday I met with my mentor, Liz, for our (gulp) second-to-last meeting. She said I've been developing clearer pictures, that I'm starting to build a visual hierarchy. I'm still not sure what these pictures are trying to convey, but she saw in them a "quiet alienation", "quirkiness", and "sentimentality", which I've got to come to grips with. It's okay to be sentimental, but I've got to realize it and be purposeful. She advised me to look at Bill Viola, John Curran, and Lisa Yuskavage for works that play with kitch and self-loathing.

These are some of the paintings I've been working on. Or are they drawings? Most are still in progress.

I'm wondering, though, where to go next. How many more drawings can I make of slightly strange goings-on in my house? What's the point of them? are they personal narratives? What am I adding to them with the scribbling and words and cartoons? Why do I feel the need to ruin everything at least a little?