When I started this particular blog, I didn’t realize that keeping it up on the road would be as difficult as it was. Over the course of this past summer I traveled through a good portion of the country and at some point my laptop battery decided to stop working. Battery power is important when you don’t have a steady source of electricity. Getting an internet connection is a hassle as well, especially when you don’t have a vehicle to travel around in. Now that I got that out my system, time to get to the point of this particular writing.
After returning from four months of traveling, a good deal of my time has been spent trying to find work, looking at ways to continue my education and most importantly doing my artwork. As my college career as an undergraduate student came to a close I had to really do a bit of reflecting in terms of my artwork and what I want to do with it. With the rejection of my application to graduate school looming in my mind, I had to figure out my direction now that I was leaving the cushion of undergraduate education. Upon reflecting the work I had done in order to get my application to school together I realized that at the time I wasn’t completely ready to go to that next level just yet. I also made a promise to myself that when admissions time rolled around again I would be ready and I would come at the schools I decide to apply to with full force.
With the Dane vs. Dane series completed I originally had the idea to take a step back and reflect upon my work from before I went to college. I had so many notebooks filled with drawings and all these old ideas that before I buckled down and decided to become an art student went unheard. I started to conceptualize this series, yet the work I was still creating deviated from the concept of a retrospective series of paintings. The fact was I was moving on from my life as a college student and I was making work based on that, thus the beginning of Dane vs. Dane 2. So far I have completed four paintings out of this series, with one more still in development and more coming. This particular blog entry is my way of introducing those pieces and talking a little bit about each of them.
The first painting I have developed for the series is also the incomplete painting from the series. This particular piece was inspired by The Roots and their album Rising Down. Around the time of developing this piece I had been listening to that album frequently and usually music helps me move to different stages of my art and this time proved to be no different. I went from listening to Eminem’s albums Relapse and Recovery which assisted in the motivation to complete the Dane vs. Dane series to listening to The Roots. The main idea behind this painting was that I was moving on from school and part of me was dying, but the other part was moving on. One thing I must mention is that I have the tendency to overcomplicate ideas so that I end up needing to create an idea to finish my original idea. If I lost you there I’m sorry because I do not have a simpler way to explain it. Part of this reason why this painting is incomplete is because originally I was going to make a time lapsed video of me painting it to create a visual story of the thought process behind the painting. The other part is I wanted to paint something I never tried painting before which was turning the ends of the hair on the living side into roots. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to do that and I couldn’t figure out how to do it and make it read as roots. Needless to say, I’m going to go with a simpler idea to complete this painting. I will tentatively have it completed in the near future.
This painting is currently incomplete.
The second painting took about 3 months to develop and is one of my last paintings to be completed. This painting is titled “Sacrifice” and depicts a pencil like gun being shot through the subject’s head with the lead of the pencil going through the other side of his head. This painting mainly has to deal with the fact that since I graduated with a degree in art I have been sacrificed to the world of art. What I mean by this is that creating art is not a hobby of mine at this point, it is a way of life and now I have to live and breathe art every day. If you were to look in my sketchbooks, I have this particular painting sketched about three or four times. The reason being is I wasn’t quite sure about particular details. In the final painting you cannot see who is pulling the trigger on the pencil gun. I did this because there are multiple possibilities as to who could pull the trigger. The subject could be pulling the trigger, sacrificing himself to the world of art or it could be society sacrificing him because of what it says on his degree from college. I wanted the piece to be open to interpret and for people to develop their own answers as to who is actually pulling the trigger. This painting was inspired by the Eminem song When I’m Gone. Personally as someone who enjoys music and listens to is constantly I develop my own interpretations of the music and I consider that song to be the moment where Eminem decided to get rid of his Slim Shady persona and move on with his music. I also needed to move on from the negative feelings of being rejected from the school I applied to and take my work to the next level.
This piece is titled "Sacrifice" it is oil on canvas.
After I initially developed those first two paintings I graduated and soon after graduation I began to travel. This became a transitional stage for me and I started to do work outside of my comfort zone and out of my particular style with stylized screaming faces. I also began oil painting on wood which is change of pace when you are used to painting on canvas. I created three paintings on wood and ultimately only two made it into the series.
The first of the two paintings I completed on the road was my attempt to step out of my style and it yielded interesting results. As I sit here trying to describe this painting, words fail me. This piece is about losing yourself in a sense, the subject is not complete as there are pieces missing from his face and he has no body. This subject could be read as a mask but I don’t believe that would be correct due to the fact that he has eyes and the face has the depth and articulation that skin has. At the time I was experimenting with painting on wood boards for the first time and wasn’t sure how it was going to come out. I also created a sketch in which pieces of the face were purposefully missing and I liked the concept.
The second painting was an expansion of my first idea. I got rid of the confines of facial structure and just drew parts of the face on a piece of paper. The idea of day and night developed as I sketched the painting on the board and it gained a life of its own at that point. The main idea behind this piece is stepping away from what I know in one aspect and making something else out of it. I also consider both to be very dream-like. I consider this series to be about the death and rebirth of my creative side, much like a star explodes and destroys things within its radius and the remains begin to form together to create new stars.
This piece is called "New Life" represent current transitions.
The last painting so far in this series was created after my travels. Much like my piece relating to losing yourself, the subject is incomplete. In my opinion the subject is forming back together after being destroyed which is why he is not complete. This can also attribute to the blue background as opposed to the red background of the previous painting. Since the painting is relying on a subject that is not “complete” I rely heavily on contrast in this painting for people to get exactly what he is.
Portraiture is something I thoroughly enjoy and while not fully deviating from the face, I did step away from the style I have been using doing portraits. While this variation of Dane vs. Dane is incomplete, I still thought it would be worth sharing what I am currently working on as opposed to talking about older pieces like I have done in my older blog entries. I hope you enjoyed it and I will work harder on making these more frequent.
