American lust. (new series!)
What do we lust for here in this country? What turns us into quivering piles of sweaty, short-breathed, toungue-lolling idiots of desire? Power? Money? Sex?
Nope.
Tasteful and enchanting home decor.
Follow me here.
Walk to your kitchen and look at the pile of mail on your counter. You see that Pottery Barn catalog? THAT is American Lust my friend. Those matching curtains and bedsheet sets that have flecks of simulated sea glass in them? You want that shit. Even if you don't admit it to me, you want it.
You want to believe you'll make pasta with your pasta maker more than once, or that those colorful plastic tumblers will make your place look contemporary and modern with just a hint of thrift. Lust.
And why? Because all that stuff represents an idea - an idea of success.
For us success is usually a scene in our heads, and that scene has props. That scene is filled with things, the things of success. We want these things. We want to collect them like vouchers for success.
This is how Pottery Barn, or Crate and Barrel, or Williams Sonoma make money - showing us a picture of our successful life in the pages of a catalog.
And you know what? They have me hook, line and sinker. I look at these catalogs and think how beautiful the shots are, how balanced the page composition, the typography - it's done well. In that sense I love it.
But in another sense I know, we all know, that beauty is paper-thin right? No working kitchen looks like these shots, and nobodys home, nobodys life is that perfect. Life is messy.
And as for collecting things, I've seen where that ends up. In the last 10 years I buried 4 grandparents, and know what happens to the things we collect over our lives. They outlive us. They sit in boxes in our empty homes to be sorted through, thrown out and given away. My grandfather's tools, some of them older than me, were part of his legacy, as was my grandmother's plastic rosary and fake gold jewelry.
So for the series, how to capture this "fool's gold" of nesting terra cotta bowls, or glittering knife set, or caphelon non-stick pans with stainless steel handles.
How to capture this wanting to sate a hunger, using all the wrong food? American consumerism. My consumerism. All of that.
To start with I used a new tool - projection. I have to get the composition and products right for the painting to work - because part of the series idea is to render the allure of the catalog - the painting should have the same seduction. By projecting the catalog page on the canvas, I can trace the visual bones of the page and get it right.
Then there were the letterforms. Type is a huge part of the visual in any catalog, and I couple this with messages in my head as I'm working to energize the surface. The words works as copy AND 2d marks, this is a good thing.
Finally the BIG SHARPIE on the treated canvas is well, fantastic. Love the bold, black marks it makes on the surface.
Next step is color and shading - not sure how that fits in to be honest. But this initial piece is encouraging. Will keep you posted.
American lust series. Sex in serving bowls. It's working I think.
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