Developing Series

I haven't really talked that much about my work lately. The original intention of this blog was to add supplementary information about my paintings and other work, but that concept led to me not being as consistent with this blog. Sometimes so many ideas float around and never come to fruition because negative thoughts beat out certain ideas to make the thinker perceive the thought as a bad idea. Also when it comes to me this year started out on a good note but things went from good to bad to worse in a short period of time. My posts on this blog were a reflection on that and was a way to get ideas out of my head. In the long run it's a good thing because it allowed me to keep my blog up to date. It's March and I am almost tied with the amount of posts I made here in 2012 and 2011. It's good to have the ability to transfer energy into something productive.

This particular post is about a series I unintentionally developed. It can be perceived in my art that I tend to draw or paint caricatures of myself often. It's actually one of the things I'm asked when I show a particular sketch to someone. Usually when I do character studies I tend to want  to base them off of someone, even if I never intend on painting that subject. If I like how a study comes out, I tend to plan to put it on canvas. Since I almost never have another person as a character study, I utilize myself. Over the past few years I have completed three paintings on wood using the profile view and the colors black, yellow and orange. The last piece of this series was completed New Years day and is the first painting in the series. After I developed this I was able to chronologically order and the order in which they were created are actually opposite of the order of the paintings.



The above picture is the most recent and it illustrates this subject moving away from his source of being. The ties are being broken and it seems that he is searching for something and not looking back to his source of being at the moment. In the chronology of these pieces it was developed last but comes first since the subject seems to be severing ties with something similar to itself.



The next piece depicts the same subject shedding a large tear, going into a head and face that is not together for lack of a better word coming out of the bottom. This particular piece was created in the middle and subsequently takes place in between the first and the third painting.It represents loneliness and the distorted face represents the abandoned idea that the subject will find what he is looking for.



The last piece was the first one painted and shows the subject surrounded by darkness looking up at the only other thing similar to himself if the sky. He is away from his source of being and enraged because he feels abandoned and alone.

Earlier this year I did revisions to my artist statement and through my research I learned that orange is a color that can be used to represent spirituality. This was not something I knew through my initial development of these paintings. By no means is this particular series complete as I see the subject going through more trials and hopefully he will find what he is searching for.

Thoughts

Sometimes we compare certain events to past events and we can say on a superficial level that event a was better than event b due to these particular factors. If I compared the beginning of this year to the beginning of last year I could say similar things. 2013 started out with its ups and then some downs. The downs took more of a toll than the ups, but that can be expected positivity is easier to swallow than negativity. Negativity is easier to wallow in and get sucked into.
This year I came in with a plan and I worked hard to get the things I needed to get those things done. Obstructions came my way and they were overcome only for bigger obstructions to appear, but that's how it works right? I reached a huge obstacle that not only shook the foundation I was standing on but created enough fissures for me to fall through the ground and land extremely hard. There were moments I wanted to give up but there was always someone there to talk some sense into me and I'm grateful for that. Not many people have that support system. I am a believer that difficulties are a test to see how you will stick with something and sometimes it will seem hopeless but if it's something that you are passionate about you will stick with it and reap the rewards. I spoke with an artist during the opening ceremony of an exhibition at my alma mater and he told me that everybody has a story of how they succeeded or failed in whatever they attempted to accomplish.
I grew up in an abusive household, both physically and verbally. Many times I was verbally berated to the point where I began to question my own self worth. It's difficult to understand these things as a child and when you are young and it happens often enough you begin to accept it as your reality. You don't question certain things without an outside perspective present to give you reason to question. It wasn't until I spent time away and started being productive and receiving praises for things I did right instead of ridicule for things I did wrong did I begin to slightly question things. Even in that instance I wasn't fully able to understand the full spectrum.
The last paragraph was not an attempt to get sympathy. There are many others who suffer similar fates and much worse. Who don't get a glimpse of the positive and in a way are forced to focus on the negative. Sometimes it makes it harder to move forward when you're looking back too often. The point is that as individuals we have to learn how to let go and focus on moving forward. For some individuals forward momentum is easier to gain due to a good support system, for others rationalization becomes a crutch. Our fears sometimes shroud our better judgements and we begin to make certain things fact without them actually being fact.
We all have obstacles to overcome, you can't really understand someone else's without knowing their story and even then you may not be able to understand.