Envy
Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 1:12 pm
Title: "Envy"
Artist: (me)
Media: Oil on Canvas
Size: 28 x 36 inches
Date: 1999
Not For Sale (at any price)
Description:
Envy is an abstract expressionist piece. It was painted in only 2-3 hours, and done entirely with the pallet knife (as apposed to a brush). The surface of Envy is 'very' textured, with deep gouges between slatherings of paint & pallet knife marks. Frankly 2-3 hours is fast just for covering a canvas that size with paint, let alone creating a work of art on it. I have found that my greatest works of art tend to occur in a frenzied pace, with absolute focus, where the art is more 'channeled' than 'made'. I have paintings which represent more than thirty times the investment in terms of hours, but are not as good as works which occurred in a gushing flow of creative passion. The muses are fickle.
Often people ask me what they are supposed to see in it. I really don't want to answer that. I prefer that people see whatever their own unique perspective brings to it, or can decipher from it. As an abstract expressionist work, it strives to embody a feeling or idea, rather than recognizable objectification. Despite this, Envy does have a depth of field in its imagery. Which makes it marginal as an abstract expressionist work. It sits in a poorly defined gray area between artistic styles. So the painting dares you to make recognizable understandings out of its sense of 3-D space, which in turn competes with the highly textured three dimensional surface of the painting.
I consider envy to be my best work of art, in any medium (this is out of a pretty extensive body of artwork). It is a more perfect expression of the feelings that inspired it (which are somewhat more complex than the title would imply) than any other piece I've done. And it is probably the only piece I've made that I can honestly say resembles nothing I have seen from any other artist. It is rather unique in style.
Unfortunately it loses some of its physical presence as shown here. It's large size and 3 dimensional surface are lost in this small photo. The painting has a definite personal presence to it, it really commands attention in a room. The photo of it doesn't quite carry the same weight.
