Title: " October 25, 2006 "Acrylic & Pastel on Paper
46 x 44 1/2 inches
Michael Cross
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Work in Progress
Session 4:
Things are happening faster now.
Added a color wash to give more
visual layers to work with. The charcoal
lines are obscurred, but still there.
They will now get reworked to bring
them forward in the field.
Looks like another two or three steps
in the process will have it finished...
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Chuck Close at the Modern Art Museum, Ft. Worth
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth www.mamfw.org has installed a great exhibit of printmaking by artist Chuck Close. Friends had recommended this show, and I'm glad they did, because ordinarily it's painting shows that really get me in the door of a museum. In fact, I was going to see the Sean Scully exhibit "Wall of Light", which was very good, but the Close show was an education!
Name a printing technique, and it's probably represented here. Woodblock, mezzotint, silkscreen, aquatint, lithography, linocut, paper pulp, etching... and on and on. One gallery even has the progressive stages of a woodblock print, the original painting it's made from, and a large silk tapestry of the same painting. There is an example of a large portrait made into a silkscreen, using 128 separate colors. This means 128 separate screens are printed on the same sheet of paper to make one print. The resulting prints are shown in stages of printing the screens, 10 at a time (i.e., State I includes screen 1-10, State II screens, 11-20, etc.).
This is a real chance to get into the labor intensive process the artist and his collaborating master woodcarvers, metalworkers, and printmakers must go through to produce artwork. The results are beautiful and stunning. I'll go back, since this exhibit, organized by the Blaffer Gallery in Houston, continues through at least June. Check the museum website above for details.
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth www.mamfw.org has installed a great exhibit of printmaking by artist Chuck Close. Friends had recommended this show, and I'm glad they did, because ordinarily it's painting shows that really get me in the door of a museum. In fact, I was going to see the Sean Scully exhibit "Wall of Light", which was very good, but the Close show was an education!
Name a printing technique, and it's probably represented here. Woodblock, mezzotint, silkscreen, aquatint, lithography, linocut, paper pulp, etching... and on and on. One gallery even has the progressive stages of a woodblock print, the original painting it's made from, and a large silk tapestry of the same painting. There is an example of a large portrait made into a silkscreen, using 128 separate colors. This means 128 separate screens are printed on the same sheet of paper to make one print. The resulting prints are shown in stages of printing the screens, 10 at a time (i.e., State I includes screen 1-10, State II screens, 11-20, etc.).
This is a real chance to get into the labor intensive process the artist and his collaborating master woodcarvers, metalworkers, and printmakers must go through to produce artwork. The results are beautiful and stunning. I'll go back, since this exhibit, organized by the Blaffer Gallery in Houston, continues through at least June. Check the museum website above for details.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Friday, May 05, 2006
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Sunday, April 30, 2006
This painting is titled "Comet". It's on paper, 65 x 44 inches. From this I will produce a line drawing of the painting, similar to other pairs on my website. If you go to www.michaelcrossgallery.com/jan2006webpage.htm you can see two versions of the painting "January 11, 2006": the "spontaneous" one and its line drawing.
Trying to get a handle on what's known and not known by the artist when starting an abstraction. Doing the drawing afterward might uncover hidden patterns common to the body of work. Don't know.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Living off the Grid
My reason for investigating patterns in my own paintings by doing black and white drawings of them is to actually question the whole idea of ANY artwork being "spontaneous". If there are patterns in the work of an artist, such as those found by using fractal geometry on the pieces, then isn't the artist aware of that, at least on some level of conciousness? Maybe the eventual matching of the appearance of the work-in-progress with the (hidden) mental image in the artist's mind is what causes a work to be judged "finished" by the artist.
My reason for investigating patterns in my own paintings by doing black and white drawings of them is to actually question the whole idea of ANY artwork being "spontaneous". If there are patterns in the work of an artist, such as those found by using fractal geometry on the pieces, then isn't the artist aware of that, at least on some level of conciousness? Maybe the eventual matching of the appearance of the work-in-progress with the (hidden) mental image in the artist's mind is what causes a work to be judged "finished" by the artist.
Friday, February 10, 2006
This is where we can toss around ideas about art, mostly, or ideas about other topics in our contemporary world. Lately I'm interested in the articles in NATURE and the New York Times about authenticating the "newly found" Pollock paintings. Computer technology meets abstract primal paint tossin'. What a concept. More to say on that soon, but for now, welcome!
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