Monday and tonight I work on CMYK gradient studies in paint. Out of practice with the brush and feel of oil. Struggle to do the 10% value without adding white. I experimented with making a transparent paint with marble dust and glass dust. I can use this as a base and add tiny bits of pigment to be able to do transparent layers of the tints.

The question that comes to mind is would I do these colour studies if there wasn’t a utility? I keep telling myself that it’s practice for analyzing an layering comyk tones to create the colour values when I get to the paintings. but if there wasn’t that goal or reason would I still do them for the hell of it? Does doing the studies necessitate that I go on and do the painting in order to justify the time and energy put into these drawings? Maybe they help provide the motivation and energy to work through to completion with the paintings?

Cyan and Magenta layering

Again the mechanical/disciplined process worked for me. Not sure where it is headed. Which is an emotional challenge to be ok with and not get anxious or force something. Started thinking about working on a full piece while simultaneously doing the colour studies. Idea was to warm-up. Jump around, combat bordem. Though I may just be getting ahead of myself and wanting to have a “finished” piece. A real “work-in-progress” as opposed to just surrendering to the process and focusing on one piece at a time. For now I’m not going to change anything.

Raquel Mazzina / Jaune / 122 x 92 cm / oil on canvas / http://www.arthousegallery.com.au

Raquel Mazzina’s work is an exploration of the artist’s emotive response to landscape. Topographical appearances are left behind, concentrating on the light, atmosphere and spirit of place. This intuitive and emotive approach results in a sensuous and luscious painterly surface. Her masterful use of colour conveys the seasonal changes from Autumn to Spring. {Read More…}

gordonfraserfinearts.com

I wasn’t familiar with the artist before seeing the show, so when I got back to the computer I check out what the gallery had to say. Here’s an excerpt,

If abstract art is the consummate means of communicating what Kandinsky famously called “internal necessity,” then it is a matter of the quality of inward depth in abstraction. In American action painting it means enacting raw feeling, implying that the instincts in which it originates are uncontrollable, while in Kang’s Orientalist action painting it means refining feeling, so that it is brought under ego control and stabilized, and can be aesthetically contemplated, that is, incorporated into the conscious self and used to fertilize its growth and understanding. The goal of Kang’s Orientalist action painting is self-consciousness not self-expression–more particularly, the transformation of self-expression into self-consciousness. If American action painting is informed by avant-garde primitivism–the climactic statement of the “noble savagery” that Gauguin pursued–then Kang’s action painting is informed by the Oriental ideal of meditative calm, holding its own whatever emotional and social storms threaten it. {Read more…}

While the academic in me would argue with certain turns of phrase in this piece and the implications/assumptions of both action painting and the “Oriental ideal of meditative calm,” it did get me thinking about a couple of points of comparison. First, in American gestural painting we often find that the expressive gesture functions as metaphor for an individualistic or atomistic conception of the self. Kang’s paintings seem to point to a different conception of the self, one that is more holistic. In her work, the individual gestures function together as a whole to create a unified abstract image. Second, it got me thinking about the Confucian/Classical Chinese idea of the “Doctrine of the Mean” (chung-yung) and so I pulled out one of my books and Wing-Tsit Chang had this to say which I found interesting.

In the Analects chung-yung, often translated the “Mean,” den;otes moderation but here chung means what is central and yung means what is universal and harmonious. The former refers to human nature, the latter to its relation with the universe. Taken together, it means that there is harmony in human nature and that this harmony underlies our moral being and prevails throughout the univers. In short, man and Nature form a unity. {Read more…}

Ms. Lipsky, whose work is mostly abstract and geometrical, gave a cool and elegant defense of painting as the formal practice of creating beauty. She quoted Mark Rothko, saying, “An expression of beauty is an expression of rightness.” {Read more…}

Pat Lipsky, Spiked Red, 1969

(via Daily Gusto)

The are more wonderful recent paintings posted on her website. I am particularly drawn to the cold light of two paintings Dowager and Colbalt.

(via Paintings and Drawings)

Another artist concerned with the yearly flooding is Richard Tsao who uses water based colors to tint his flooded studio and then sops up the color with paper.

A quick google search for more information dug of this great photo of Richard Tsao in his studio as well as some clothing designs via Asia Society

Richard Tsao in his studio

There are also some great monoprints over at Art Projects International and a bunch of other work and this other great studio shot over at ChinaSquare Gallery. Uhmm….can I just say, I’d much rather be there than here in my cubicle in front of the computer!

Richard Tsao's Studio