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Archive for purdah

Monotype for Thursday

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags abstract, Art, monotype, printmaking, purdah, Thanksgiving, Tom Bennett on November 26, 2009 by Tom Bennett

Swarm in Purdah, 2009, monotype, 12″ x 12″

You Must Destroy to Create.

Posted in abstract, Art, figurative, nude, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett, Work in Progress with tags abstract, Art, burqa, figure, oil painting, Painting, process, purdah, Tom Bennett on November 19, 2009 by Tom Bennett

(That’s spoken with an monotone eastern European accent.)

There has been talk of the individual approach to process and time management this week on the blog. It was addressed in a post from Tuesday.

Lately I’ve really been busted trying to manage my time in the studio. Its a drag with a capital g.

I work in a variety of ways. My monotypes, due to the nature of the medium, are produced rather quickly, in a matter of hours or less. Sometimes a painting will take but a relatively short time depending on the energy, the conceptual circumstances and how efficiently my subconscious is doing the thinking.
Other times, a piece or pieces will go through the whole “create and destroy and create” exercise and may take weeks or months to be realized. Here is an example of a painting I started a few weeks ago which has -and will – go through a metamorphosis as a dialogue of sorts. The conversation is all an adventure and will go through so many changes I may not quite know where it will end. The piece was started as a part of an ongoing series of paintings connected to the idea of the “purdah” and its related symbology and meanings.

I started it as a straight figure, but I unfortunately don’t have documentation from that first stage. Then I furiously worked into it.
a stage from a few weeks ago:

It wasn’t working for me; it was at a narrative and formal stage I wasn’t satisfied with. so I continued.

and another stage

Here it is staring at me now:

I wanted to push the form, the abstraction and the marks somewhere else. I’ll sit with this a little. it might be finished; I’ll keep you updated. Cause I know you care.

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Unfinished Purdah

Posted in abstract, Art, figurative, nude, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett with tags abstract, Art, burqa, figure, nude, oil painting, Painting, purdah, Tom Bennett on November 5, 2009 by Tom Bennett

I’ve been interested in pursuing neutral, almost colorless paintings. Of course, there is a world of color in the most neutral composition of blacks grays, and whites. At any rate, this painting has been labor and is not co-operating. I demand the painting to bow to my will. Instead it has behaved difficultly. We shall see where this ends up.

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Naked but Covered

Posted in abstract, Art, figurative, nude, oil painting, Painting, portrait, Tom Bennett with tags abstract, Art, nude, oil on canvas, Painting, portraiture, purdah, Tom Bennett on October 14, 2009 by Tom Bennett

I’m continuing to push the b&w with a little color as underpainting and enjoying myself immensely. Thought? I’m not conscious of intellectual struggle here, thank god. It’s more of the physical and possibly metaphysical, abstract but not erudite. The actions, the constructions and destructions reveal the painting for good, bad or mediocre.