Monday, April 14, 2008

My new boon/bane painting.

Steven LaRose, Work Song Dynasty, 2008
Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 32 x 48"

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

very selleable

Steven LaRose said...

Hah!

"Selleable"

Is dem fightin' words?

tackad said...

I want to compliment you on this painting - problem is I can't seem to find the appropriate words that would do it/you justice without sounding corny; so I'll just say Very good. . . .

Steven LaRose said...

Thanks tackad, I am too close to the process at the moment (just finished the painting this afternoon) so I can't be objective about it. I do know that it was not "fun".

Also, it has compelled me to attempt more paintings. That is both good and bad. . . kinda like "corny". . .
your comments are appreciated.

David said...

In the winter my girls always ask me to leave some of the "jack frost" on their windows when I get out to scrape the car. I think this must be close to what they see on those cold, biting mornings, peering out as the sun comes up.

Lovely . . . organic . . . sends me back to a place of childlike wonder of the world. Like great picture books that you can get lost in for hours. Beautiful, Steven.

Must have been a huge undertaking -- that aint a small painting, eh!

Carla said...

You really really nailed something.

Steven LaRose said...

Thanks David. I'm not allowed to scrape Zaida's entire window on those mornings. It is interesting that I started this in the winter and I almost gave up on it, but this week, the cherry blossoms inspired me. I couldn't even blog.

Carla, it isn't too "Hallmark" is it? Not that it matters, but Anon's comment above about salability has me blinking and rubbing my eyes.

Personally, I find the colors awkward, and might not have finished it if Eva Lake hadn't of visited my studio and given me encouragement.

Chris Rywalt said...

This is very groovy.

Carla said...

From what I can tell on-line, and based on what stokes me, this is a great painting. I love the color, I love that you did hallmark, without doing hallmark, and you didn't do irony either.

It's on such a fine edge of interpretation, that it's easy to second-guess. If you saw this a year from now, you'd have no doubts.

It's as good as you suspect it is.

Bill Gusky said...

Love it, Steve -- having the same difficult time finding words that others have expressed.

You're on a different plane, how's that?

Eva said...

Excellent!
But just as you said, digital cannot come close to the force of painting when you are there in the room with it.

(You did say that, yes? Something like that - ?)

Jacques de Beaufort said...

turning japanese

matthew said...

I'm not sure whether I love it or am disgusted by it. That's a mighty challenging palette.

Visceral reaction = must be good, then, either way.

Steven LaRose said...

GRAIN OF SALT ALERT
(the following comments are "from the hip" and are thematically hinged upon the mystery of language)


Thanks Chris.
GROOVY = "Fashionable, exiting enjoyable, and excellent." Which are all things I am proud of, except for the implied transitory nature of these compliments.

Carla, in my middle age, 45, it just doesn't seem rewarding to be IRONIC any more. The antonym "sincerity" is all I have faith in now.

Bill's reference to a "different PLANE" could be a modern adaptation of Keasey's metaphor of: "You are either on the bus or off the bus" which meant "You are either attuned to the group consciousness or you are not attuned to the group consciousness." Either you are on the GROOVY PLANE or you aren't. Bill's compliment implies a movement without the negative hierarchical growth.

Eva, I'm not ready to condemn DIGITAL yet. It just seems that, for us painters, analog reproduction hasn't even caught up to the experience of standing in front of a painting.

I giggle that Jacques’ TURNING JAPANESE comment can simultaneously refer to The Vapor’s 1980 hit song which wasn’t about masturbation as well as a poke at the Song Dynasty, which wasn’t Japanese.

Matthew’s VISCERAL comment has left me with a nausea/hunger that only existentialists and painters share.