Selfie

Self Portrait MIB

oil 40x30 2014

I did this self portrait as a watcher or Man in Black. It's a nod to the bald men from Fringe, but also to the original incarnations given us by the paranoid and special contactee, Albert Bender. Folklore has it that these men in black were either government agents or extraterrestrials, or beings that needed a default look and suit.
Somewhere I read that Albert Bender was an artist. I will take a leap and propose that he might have been inspired by the original man in black, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte. The artist chose this outfit for his persona, and depicted men in his paintings who wore such "default" suits. Hence, I include a Magritte cloudy sky.

Greenpoint Watercolor

Greenpoint Empire

watercolor 30x40 2000

This was rescued by my brother, who found it recently among a pile of paintings stored in rural Pennsylvania. Miraculously, this work on paper shows no mice nibbles or foxing, despite years in a damp trailer.

It was painted from the roof of my loft in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (Huron Street.) I have framed it without a matt, hanging.

Queens Clock

Queens Clock

oil 70 x 99 2014

This painting has been lying around the studio for around four years, so it is a young chicken compared with some of the paintings I have occupied myself with. These have inceptions way back in the later 20th Century!

In any case, Queens Clock deals with time figuratively and literally (it has a working clock embedded into it.) The sky has a craquelure that I consciously developed (I would not recommend this technique as it requires ridiculous patience.)

It was inspired by a NY trip where we stayed in a Long Island City hotel near the Seven line. This part of Queens is one of my favourite parts of the city, which looks magical when one rides the high-up, elevated train, the spires of Manhattan ahead.

Empire Watercolor

Empire

watercolor 70x50 1992

When my brother retrieved some old paintings recently I began thinking of framing some watercolors. This one is pretty large. It's not dainty and intimate, so I am building a frame more like the type I use for oil paintings, skipping the matt.

The scene shows a raw time in NY, when old Union Square still had some decaying signage of local stores. Empire was then abandoned, showing layers of eras, a 3-D ghost sign (see earlier post.)  I wonder if one could find such a view these days.

Sinclair

Sinclair

oil 70x90 2014

Recently my brother sent me some half-done paintings that have been stored in a trailer in rural Pennsylvania for 15 years. These are inspiring me because their surface is so thick. Before he sent them I had already begun exploring paint in a more concrete or matter-oriented way. So it was natural to finish some long-dormant works, returning to a thick paint style.

This is one of my ghost sign series, where I depict wall advertising of different eras. The wall is a palimpsest, a surface reused, which has traces of what lay before. Over time the newer layer merges with earlier layers as the surface degrades. It's a pop-art vanitas, inviting the viewer to reconstruct traces and reflect on the transience of trends and consumer culture.

Dam pipe

Dam Pipe

oil 30x40 2014

This mysterious scene greets one if he strays from the path, and chooses his foothold carefully among the damp, moss-mottled stones below the dam at Hellestvedtvannet, Herre. A huge pipe, perhaps 3 meters in diameter, carries water from the dam to hydro-electric turbines. The pipe has sprung several leaks, adding to the rapids. I was attracted to the strange blending of ancient and recent technology (the riveted iron pipe buttressed by cyclopian stones, which would have looked antique even during Roman times.)

Koggen

Koggen

oil 40x30 2014

An old-style wooden boat, called a kogg, along the Herre River.