"Bear Back"
20 × 16 inches, oil on canvas
"Bear Back" feels more traditionally "Mencher." I have one foot in my own artistic past here, making pictures for and about older queer men, especially those who don’t fit the trim, athletic, twenty-to-thirty-year-old ideal. I’ve spent years painting bodies that often get left out of that picture. There’s beauty, physical presence, and a sense of recognition in them. I think many of my older friends and collectors will find something familiar in this work.
I’ve made a number of drawings and a couple of other oil sketches of this subject, which I plan to release later. This is a more developed, fairly polished version. The broad back fills most of the canvas, and the arm resting across the chair gives the body weight. Warm pinks and browns sit against the cooler gray-blue background. The direction of the brushstrokes helps describe the shoulders, the spine, and the turn through the hips.
Even in a more finished painting, I want some evidence of how it was made to remain visible. If you look closely, you can see traces of the crayon drawing and patches of the imprimatura, the initial layer of color that forms part of the underpainting. Thin passages allow the canvas texture and earlier marks to show through. Other areas have more substantial, opaque paint. I find the beginnings of a painting quite beautiful, and I’m increasingly interested in keeping some of those beginnings within the finished work.
My training is academic and classical. I’m trying to manipulate that training so the different levels of craft remain visible. The drawing establishes the structure, the underpainting begins to give it form, and the later layers develop the color and the flesh. Some of those stages remain exposed alongside more resolved passages. I want the viewer to get a sense of the decisions and physical work involved in making the image.
This painting is also part of "Self Directed." The character is a kind of allegorical portrait of who I feel I am and who my friends are. That connection goes beyond a literal likeness. It has to do with aging, our sense of ourselves, and recognizing value and beauty in bodies that don’t necessarily fit the prevailing ideal. The more personal direction of my recent work still includes affection for the people and subjects I’ve been painting for years.
"Bear Back"
20 × 16 inches, oil on canvas
"Bear Back" feels more traditionally "Mencher." I have one foot in my own artistic past here, making pictures for and about older queer men, especially those who don’t fit the trim, athletic, twenty-to-thirty-year-old ideal. I’ve spent years painting bodies that often get left out of that picture. There’s beauty, physical presence, and a sense of recognition in them. I think many of my older friends and collectors will find something familiar in this work.
I’ve made a number of drawings and a couple of other oil sketches of this subject, which I plan to release later. This is a more developed, fairly polished version. The broad back fills most of the canvas, and the arm resting across the chair gives the body weight. Warm pinks and browns sit against the cooler gray-blue background. The direction of the brushstrokes helps describe the shoulders, the spine, and the turn through the hips.
Even in a more finished painting, I want some evidence of how it was made to remain visible. If you look closely, you can see traces of the crayon drawing and patches of the imprimatura, the initial layer of color that forms part of the underpainting. Thin passages allow the canvas texture and earlier marks to show through. Other areas have more substantial, opaque paint. I find the beginnings of a painting quite beautiful, and I’m increasingly interested in keeping some of those beginnings within the finished work.
My training is academic and classical. I’m trying to manipulate that training so the different levels of craft remain visible. The drawing establishes the structure, the underpainting begins to give it form, and the later layers develop the color and the flesh. Some of those stages remain exposed alongside more resolved passages. I want the viewer to get a sense of the decisions and physical work involved in making the image.
This painting is also part of "Self Directed." The character is a kind of allegorical portrait of who I feel I am and who my friends are. That connection goes beyond a literal likeness. It has to do with aging, our sense of ourselves, and recognizing value and beauty in bodies that don’t necessarily fit the prevailing ideal. The more personal direction of my recent work still includes affection for the people and subjects I’ve been painting for years.
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