Inspired by a conversation with my friend Ana Hernandez, an excellent conversationalist and artist herself, I've decided to post these images of 3 paintings/drawings I did a few months ago. This work was the beginning of an idea that I'm currently working with. In the midst of trying to create "prayer flags" of my own media and prayer, I began to transcribe the sound of my breath onto the surface. I was processing ideas of prayer, simple goodness, open space, clarity, even nothingness that prayer flags represent for me. I'm taking that process and working with it on the larger scale now - 5.5 sq feet and also keeping (at least for now) a white field of space. I'm coating the canvas in gesso and while it is wet, I write with graphite the sound of my breath as I breathe. Direct. I'm creating a field on which I want to include birds in flight, a silhouette abstraction really, to reference the 3 dimensionality of space and time that exists in our breathing. The vastness of our breath and the connectivity and the environment that it creates.
This is enough about this for now - here the images of the three works.
1 comment:
In an email about this post, Ana wrote (in reference to her appreciation for the works in relation to our conversation about my current painting)
.... Especially the green one, as the darker color makes it deep in space. The ochre one is interesting too; even though the images and the composition are similar to the green one, the grid makes it for a flatter interpretation of space... Depends on the idea you want to transmit.
I am imagining the text slowly transitioning into abstract visual patterns, direct representation of your breathing rhythms (in my head I tend to equate pattern and rhythm...) I like your reference to prayer and prayer flags. Prayer has a rhythm too, and the way prayer flags move to the wind is also rhythmic.
(I too imagine the text as more atmospheric than as legible text. Creating atmosphere much the way breath invisibly can create atmosphere. Thanks to Ana for good feedback and formative conversation.)
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