As the title suggests, in this final theme I returned to each of the themes I had already visited, and pushed myself. In each I was thinking about how to extend where I had gone, cross over between themes if I could, and generally produce something at a higher standard than I had before in order to conclude this unit. This strategem resulted in a theme that became heavy on introspection and creation, and less on outward facing research.
This resulted in developing a coherent project idea with a goal of “produce enough related works to have a show”. With this guide in hand, hold a photoshoot, gather references and produce some number of paintings.
Although I don’t have those works done, I though I have the foundation and direction of where to go. But prior to that, I developed the below three paintings. I’ll briefly speak to each painting here, but put further detail lower in the page.
Pulling on threads of Identity and Narrative, one of my models(“PJ”) posed himself as above. He selected costuming, pose and props. The idea here is a transitional moment, as PJ moves from some external persona, into his home persona (or maybe vice versa? this could be before some event).
I’m very pleased with the result, though his tattoos are likely a work in progress. I think, I continue this realist bent, then I’ll need to start researching some other artists and how they render such things. Ian Stone comes to mind, in terms of Canadian artists.
With the AI and broken models, I’m uncertain. I feel like there remains something here, but the lack of coherent control over what the AI does means I find myself spending far more time being a computer jockey than a painter. I’d rather be a painter.
This form is interesting but it in no way relates to what I did before — an artifact of the process I suppose. This piece feels like it needs heavy, thick textured paint. But I struggle doing that. Something for me to figure out, I suppose.
I find it very disatisfying.
This piece is pushing me hard. In fact all the pieces for this project present challenges and puzzles I’m having to work through.
I went back and forth over whether the other subway travellers should be anonymous commuters, or should they be dopplegangers of the man on the right. What happens to the narrative in each case (the indifference of society vs the man’s internal struggle and refusal to acknowledge it).
I trialled the collection of paintings on the project (“Spent”) to a number of coworkers to see their various reactions. My goal with the project is roughly that the paintings could be ordered in any sequence, and tell a story; further, the viewer is the one who fills in the gaps.
By showing them to colleagues, and telling them nothing, it was interesting to hear their various interpretations as they projected their own life experiences and expectations onto the imagery.
Table of Contents
- A Gentleman’s Progress
- Project 7 Group Critique
- Man on the Subway, Steps 5, Denoise .6
- Strange Intimacies
- Project 5 Group Critique (Recap)
- Works:
- With Our Backs to the House On Fire
- Every Other Tuesday
- Supplemental
- En Plein Air & Charity Auction
A Gentleman’s Progress
This builds on my work from last year, before this unit, where I pursued more formal portraiture. I’ve wanted to create a collection of portraits of people from the queer community for a while. I want each of my subjects to live in the margins in some form.
As I was working on Spent, I naturally reached out to models in my local area who are part of my community. Further, we are mutuals on social media and have had at least a few algorithmic interactions. This made them perfect as potential candidates for this portraiture effort. One of the models was interested, and so we got to this piece.
The work progressed from in-person life painting, reference shoot, and then work in my studio from those references. Tattoos are very hard.
Project 7 Group Critique
I presented the above stage of the painting to Group Critique. General feedback was on point. I worry that I primed the team by mentioning transitional portraiture of queer/marginalized. But generally the painting was well received, and I got some good pointers for artists to follow up on (Toulouse-Lautrec, Mike Silva, Aubrey Leventhal). I’ve looked at Silva before, and I can see the connectors.
There was a theme of referring it to “Brave” for painting this subject matter. I find that curious.
Action Points:
- Fix the right hand (well, both hands in my view) and that is already on the plan.
- Think about the lace collar as it looks rather solid here.
Man on the Subway, Steps 5, Denoise .6
Another painting driven by the AI-hallucinated body horror. As always, very different every single time.
In this iteration, I chose to describe one of my planned paintings for Spent, which shows “the businessman” character having deep regrets about something, while he rides the subway (Painting: “With our backs to the house on fire”). Then, as before, I broke the model so it presented me with nothing coherent.
This feels more Giger to me, and is a long way from done. I’m slowly building up in layers to get to this very neutralized yellow ochre/red ochre palette that the AI gave me to me. It is a fun exercise trying to make spatial sense out of the twisted, nightmare creature.
Strange Intimacies
Recap: As part of Project 5, I submitted a couple of “inciting ideas” for this project to group critique. That can be found here: Group Critique II
Building on the missing narrative of the two-hand interactions, I’ve started constructing larger works that zoom back from the action. Below are two of the initial compositions.
With Our Backs to the House On Fire
As part of the model shoot, I ask D to sit against a wall, and just go through some narrative acting of a morning subway commute. I liked this particular pose as it met the criteria of concealing identity, while his body posture conveys the emotions at play.
I’ve also been working in Blender to create a 3D environment model to help me structure the subway train. I purchased a pre-existing model from CG Trader, and then used some photobashing to extract my model from the reference photo and composite them together.
In the process I switched to a different reference image which gave me more “directional” pose, almost looking towards the dopplegangers on the left.
I enjoyed embedding some Toronto-specific transit notes into this image. The colouring of the seats indicate D is seated in the “assistance” section, while the torn poster above him says “if you see something, say something”. Perhaps on the nose, but I enjoyed it.
In the bar closest to the viewer, I tried to embed the reflection of another doppleganger of D, standing where the viewer would be — completing my final criteria that the viewer must be present in the painting’s events.
Every Other Tuesday
In this painting, I’m blending three different photographs together in order to generate my reference. Although I was working with two models at the shoot, I had them there separately. But in each case, I had them work through exactly the same poses each. That way, I can composite new references together by mix/matching the poses.
I also made use of some small posing figurines to help me decide on the framing.
Although I have transferred my sketch up to a larger panel, and washed in some base colours, I haven’t gotten very far. A pity, as I wanted to complete this painting as well to include in my final portfolio.
Supplemental
En Plein Air & Charity Auction
My partner and I spent some of September on Canada’s East Coast. Naturally, I brought my paints and a portable easel. I’ve never felt particularly comfortable with landscape, but I keep practicing — since that is how you get better.
I’m pretty pleased with how this piece turned out, and its chromatic strangeness — yes, the rocks are very pink in Tidnish. This particular piece will go into a charity auction at work in about a month.
I was showing this piece to a couple of colleagues and they encouraged me to put it into my company’s Autumn charity auction. So, now, I have to figure out how to get this odd-shaped panel framed for reasonably low cost.
Clearly, my confidence is increasing. A year ago, I definitely would not have even shown the piece to colleagues.
Update: Following the auction, my piece received top bid of all the works submitted, following something of a bidding war. I’m pretty pleased about that.