some newer paintings

I'm starting to work on a new animated painting after taking a break on the videos for the last couple of weeks. I felt like I needed some time to process all the feedback I'd gotten the week of review boards, and will probably come back to "landscape of lima" later in the semester, but hopefully I'll have an in-progress version of this new project to share in a couple of weeks!

During my animation hiatus I was focusing on making more still paintings, so here are a few newer ones, both in-progress and completed! 

6 x 6 in. acrylic, oil pastel, collage, marker

This one ended up a little overdone I think, but that happens sometimes.

12 x 12 in. acrylic, house paint, oil pastel, collage, marker

Ken T. says this one feels claustrophobic, so I guess it still needs some work. =P  Since I started working mostly with collage last spring, the size of my work shrunk to no more than 12 x 12 in. max, but I think it might be time finally to start upping the scale drastically.

24 x 30 in. acrylic, house paint, oil pastel

And here's my present artist statement about painting, or an attempt to articulate what painting abstractly is about for me: 

My paintings are an attempt to develop a visual language.

There's a description I really like of the artist Albert Oehlen's paintings that says his work "remains a collage, in the truest sense. The sources Oehlen selects and samples are all taken from the numerous histories, languages, techniques, applications, methodologies, and mythologies of painting. The figures, devices, even the gestures, are like cut-outs or quotes. The canvas becomes a genuine montage of painted and painterly passages." 

While I often work with collaged materials, or a combination of paint, found papers, markers, crayons, and other low-grade materials, I hope that my paintings, regardless of media, are collages "in the truest sense." They derive their meaning from a variety of sources, and are visual diaries of my own personal history—of everything I have seen, experienced, or felt. While they are abstract, elements of figuration remain, pulling from forms and color schemes, people and places around me. I hope that they convey a love of color, a sense of humor in their unexpected squiggles and gestures, or in a line that takes an unexpected turn, and are viewed as part of a search to clarify the assortment of residual experiences I carry with me. 

oh and Happy Halloween!! =)