Friday, April 4, 2008

Boy on Bed


This painting is from my residency at Vermont Studio Center in July of 2002, an award from the NC Arts Council. More than five years later, I'm still incorporating insights I gained from visiting artists such as Vincent Desiderio and Frances Barth, and from the other residents, especially my friends Betsy Regan, Steven Barker, and Eleanor Kotlarik Wang.

For a long time I felt this painting was unfinished. Unlike my usual process, I worked from a series of drawings from life rather than photos, and intended to finish on site with the model, but time ran out on me. As I look at it now, however, I like the sketchiness of the paint, the unadorned abstraction of the composition, the bold color, the simple palette. The Nap is in many ways a direct descendent of this painting and shows me a direction to pursue: more beds. :)

Oil on canvas, gritty acrylic gesso ground (wore a good old brush down to nothing), 18" x 30."

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