I have several works in an upcoming group show in Brooklyn. The exhibition has a theme: Horses. Theme shows are sometimes iffy, but I have confidence this will be very good. These two mixed media monotype/paintings in progress are part of several final pieces I’m working on for this show. The first one is in a very unresolved stage.
This is a painting that has gone through a few variations over the past 8 months. I posted the first stage of it here : http://darteboard.com/2012/05/10/bskip-big-sketch-in-progress/ last May. I had a conversation with our own Toni Tiller about it and she exhibited once again her insight with a suggestion concerning the editing of an unresolved area of this abstracted design. The painting successfully translated form, color, value through rhythm and movement but became confused and clunky in the ‘head’ area. I repainted that territory and pulled it into a more tangible architecture. Its done, finally.
Pheromone 2013, 2013, oil on canvas, 38 x 62″
Here’s an old monotype from the archives.
I once spent a week in the Uffizi drawing room collection when one could be issued a special permit to examine original old master drawings by hand (wearing special cotton gloves, of course)–literally holding the ancient drawings on paper in your hands! Needless to say, that special provision is history. Carracci impressed me with his beautifully facile line and form. I came away with a man crush on the old italian.
Inaugural, monotype with oil paint overlay on paper, 28″ x 18″
A bit prosaic. Oil on paper, 22″ x 16″
With this piece, based on an image of Toni Tiller (supine on a trampoline), I approached the treatment a little differently than the recent paintings on paper I’ve been doing over the past year. I struggle with an objective analysis here, but the controlled application of paint , conscious distortion and drawing I see as a reaction to the graphic quality of the photo I worked from.
Tom Bennett
Trampoline, oil on paper, 22″ x 30″
I’m working on a painting now that isn’t at all there yet. Hence, I’m posting detail shots of the surface. Wetting the appetite?
oil on canvas
Tom Bennett
Took a monotype I made a few years ago of an homage to Valentin de Boulogne’s Martyrdom of St Bartholomew and painted back into it. It went from an old man being crucified to a young woman who may have just done some crucifying herself. I was inspired by a photograph of Toni.
Tom Bennett
The original monotype I found a little clumsy.
The reworked image.
Dominant at Rest, oil over monotype on paper, 16″ x 20″
She was enjoying a bit of late summer sun before heading back to the grind.
North Truro, Mass is a tiny piece of heaven.
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Ink & brush pen sketch from life
I’ve been away from traditional media for the past couple of weeks and have been tied to a mac using Photoshop for ‘applied’ purposes. This is an experiment with layers and brushes of varying modes.
TB
Fear is the Mother of Behavior, PS
I don’t have anything finished, good or even an interesting in-progress piece of sh*t, cause I’m time-poor. When I have a few moments at the illustration studio, I’ve been playing around with various illustration techniques in photoshop paint mimicry while listening to big-haired, broad-shouldered 80′s pop. . I’m fooling around with various brush presets, here’s a half-finished sketch that is not exactly a piece of brill-effing- ience, but it’s free to look. bla-bla-bla.
Tommy
Human League, scanned pencil and photoshop
This I’m going to paint into.
TB
Age, monotype, 8″ x 6″
8 years ago I lived in a Brooklyn apartment near Greenwood cemetery – a fantastic, gothic and wild place that could make for another story – and when I moved to my current house, I left a bunch of paintings with my landlady, who lived next door. I of course assumed I would come back within a few days or weeks to pick them up, but you see, I have a character flaw: I procrastinate. Oh, and I misplace and forget. I left the art with her for almost eight years. I lost touch with her and her husband until one day on the subway she walked up to me and said “I thought that was you, Tom. I recognized the paint all over your pants.” After I composed myself and shrugged off the embarrassing realization that I stumble through life with raw umber smeared all over my wardrobe, we reconnected. She had given birth to a baby boy during the first few months I had lived in the apartment, now her son was 12 . Well, she asked me to paint the young man. I couldn’t say no. I mean, she had been a free storage facility for some of my and my dad’s paintings for almost a decade. But more than that, She and her husband are wonderful people.
This is currently in a working stage. I’ll post the finish when it’s done. If it doesn’t suck.
TB
WIP, oil, wax crayon & oil stick on board, 24″ x 18″
1st Stage of a painting on monotype.
Tom Bennett, Exit Stage 1, work in progress, oil & oil based printmaking inks on Rives BFK,
9″ x 12″
Let’s see what I can blather on about in this post. Ahh, no, it’s too hot & I’m lazy.
Tom Bennett
oil , mixed media on cradled board. 20′ x 16″
It’s been a runaround week so I have nothing new to show. So, here’s a 5 year-old painting from my Homage period. Not quite fromage, but stinky/tasty in its own right. I was spending a lot of time revisiting & putting a spin on great paintings and painters I had admired. This is an interpretation of a Velasquez painting concerning a gentleman named Gazpar de Guzmán, the Count Duke of Olivares, Prime Minister of Spain under King Philip. I dropped a few pounds from him and his pony.
After Velasquez: Count Duke of Olivares, 2007, oil on board, 30″ x 50″
The original by Diego:
Painting on paper. Monotyped ink as the foundation. As I worked on this I realized it resembled someone specifically, but it was unconscious on my part. The reference image was pieced together from several sources. In other words, I didn’t consciously set out to paint this friend of mine. But this woman ends up as a proxy in so many of my paintings.
Prone, oil on monotype underpainting on paper, 16″ x 20″
The great and legendary blue grass guitarist Doc Watson died this week at the age of 89. I saw him perform once about 10 years ago at the Village Vanguard in the west village and it was a truly memorable performance. This is a painting I did over an old monotype of a dog, which I suppose is apropos, considering his blindness and the hang dog blues he sometimes played on his Gibson. It’s a distorted image and not a great likeness, but here’s to Doc.
Doc Watson, oil over monotype on paper, 10″ x 18″
Agora Gallery - the proud sponsor of the Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, which offers contemporary artists the opportunity to show their original art at one the most acclaimed juried art shows in Chelsea, New York’s art galleries district.
Tom Bennett
darteboard
galinatodorova
Jason Gray
jdhastings
laelia e. mitchell
probrucer
ssstephg
Toni Tiller
