Still Life with Tulips, Wooden Shoes & Oranges

Studio Akimbo
559 658-2663
info@trowzersakimbo.com

Artist's Comments

This is an abstracted version of my representational painting Nederlander. The abstracted versions of my still lifes are usually more challenging and time consuming than my representational versions. When painting a representational still life, I have the subject I'm painting right in front of me, as reference. While there ARE many creative decisions to be made here, like primary areas of importance, whether I want to paint loose or tight and my challanges: getting the color, value and edges right, I have the model as my guide. My process is very straight forward.

My abstraction is a different story. I do begin with the subject/model, but rather than representing it from a single point of view, I examine it from all sides. Then I design a two-dimensional representation of my model, that includes elements I gathered through my examination in the round. From here on out I leave my subject reference behind and use the graphic means (composition, line, form, color, value, texture & pattern) as I choose. It's a very improvisational approach. I put down my first color and that suggests to me what should come next. Those first two patches inspire the next addition and so on. When abstracting, anything is possible, there are no guide posts to reference, when distinguishing if things are right or wrong. You have to rely exclusively on whatever you've learned about balance. This involves a lot of trial and error...very time consuming. I love it!