Finding my "ancestors"
So I find myself squarely in the line of succession of the Color Field, Post Painterly Abstraction painters of the 1950s and 60s. For the past year I've been painting with acrylics on unstained canvas and linen.
Using these raw supports give the pieces a soft, organic feel; the acrylic and water-based inks that I use sink into the canvas and become part of the whole. It's a technique that was used by Color Field artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Francis in the 1950s and 60s, which I find myself updating and making my own with a combination of staining, pouring, blotting, line, and use of negative space.
Many of the Color Field artists cite their main influences as Matisse, Miro, Klee and Kandinsky; and while Frankenthaler, Francis, Olitsky and Louis share many of the same characteristics, they don’t really resemble each other. I like to think of my work as falling in this line of influence and inspiration.
To go into a little more detail, Color Field Painting is an offshoot of Abstract Expressionism; both
• treat the surface of a canvas as a "field" of vision, without a central focus
• emphasize the flatness of the surface
• don’t refer to objects in the natural world
But unlike Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting is less about the process of making the work than about the tension created by overlapping and interacting areas of flat color.
The art critic Clement Greenberg, who coined the phrase Post Painterly Abstraction (Color Field) in contrast to Painterly Abstraction (Abstract Expressionism) wrote: "In their reaction against the 'handwriting' and 'gestures' of Painterly Abstraction, these artists also favor a relatively anonymous execution."
Using these raw supports give the pieces a soft, organic feel; the acrylic and water-based inks that I use sink into the canvas and become part of the whole. It's a technique that was used by Color Field artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Francis in the 1950s and 60s, which I find myself updating and making my own with a combination of staining, pouring, blotting, line, and use of negative space.
Many of the Color Field artists cite their main influences as Matisse, Miro, Klee and Kandinsky; and while Frankenthaler, Francis, Olitsky and Louis share many of the same characteristics, they don’t really resemble each other. I like to think of my work as falling in this line of influence and inspiration.
To go into a little more detail, Color Field Painting is an offshoot of Abstract Expressionism; both
• treat the surface of a canvas as a "field" of vision, without a central focus
• emphasize the flatness of the surface
• don’t refer to objects in the natural world
But unlike Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting is less about the process of making the work than about the tension created by overlapping and interacting areas of flat color.
The art critic Clement Greenberg, who coined the phrase Post Painterly Abstraction (Color Field) in contrast to Painterly Abstraction (Abstract Expressionism) wrote: "In their reaction against the 'handwriting' and 'gestures' of Painterly Abstraction, these artists also favor a relatively anonymous execution."
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