okay. sorry, to switch into somber gears out of nowhere.. but..
like many of us, the devastating earthquake in haiti has haunted me deeply to say the very least. it's been two weeks and i still don't know where to begin, so i will refrain from starting up any downward spiral of a conversation about it, yammering about emotions and politics and all the weight in between. i haven't tackled any outright tragic and/or topical material in a long time, but for this, i felt a very specific urgency to speak to it visually. even if it's just a cry for it, without offering any comfort or solution. what is additionally haunting to me about this piece is how it came to be. if you've followed this blog through the last couple months, maybe you'll recognize the path this canvas taken. it started as a underpainting for a cape town bar scene back in december. then in early january i scratched that, flipped and hit it with some aggressive black oil paint - my intent to make a grim, sharp and steep, choppy and broken abstract scene with shots of color slipping through the cracks. i wasn't sure what my next move would be, if any. a couple days after the earthquake (after entertaining my mom and aunt who were in town for a couple days) i finally returned to the studio, knowing that i had to address this madness. it hit me like a truck, this is it, done! i already made a "cry for haiti" before even knowing what i was making. doesn't get much more haunting than that. added some quiet, dark and graphic imagery into the heavy shadows. different than my usual vibrant fun stuff, but i'm definitely pleased with it. will look better when it's dry and scanned.
in other lighter projects, here's a quick study i'm calling "noise" for lack of a better title:
my new york subway map is through its first phase, more progress to come:
not nearly complete, but i'll call it "white funk" for now..
and i'm still glueing tapes together.. and spray painting them.. mmmmm..
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