Saying Something Difficult

What struck me was tremendous loss while reading the CNN article,“She was fleeing with her grandson, who was holding a white flag. Then she was shot.” In intimate words and pictures the senseless event was  described by the women's surviving family members. 

Immediately I knew the murdered woman was of a pure heart and devoted to her family. I know Middle Eastern families and have friends in Egypt so the story felt more personal to me. 

I decided to create a painting and used AI to help visualize the scene. AI did a great job cobbling together a visual narrative. I combined images to arrive at a “sketch” of the painting I wanted to make.

I wanted to show the war-torn street in Gaza, with rubble and bombed buildings . . . and a dead woman sprawled across the road. The other part is the little boy with his white flag of surrender and peace, holding the hand of his grandmother. For some reason, I chose to portray the picture as witness to the moments before and after the tragedy occurred.

When I start  a painting in the “old” style of art, where I am depicting a realistic scene, I make a drawing on canvas, and underpainting with limited color. A full fledged piece arrives that includes all elements of color, drawing and subject. 

After getting my drawing on canvas, when I began the underpainting, I dripped some red⏤symbolizing life and death in art. I  felt sure as I worked, knowing the subject was not coming out of any thought of material gain. It is not pleasing fluff ready for any wall in a home. Rather, I had deep feeling of doing something meaningful, saying something difficult that needed to be said.

In the end, it became an unusual painting for me. It is suspended in a semi-finished state . . . life interrupted. The colors are gone except for some streaks of blood, while the dear, innocent subjects live in a wasteland. I paid homage.

Encounters

The image, called The Traveler, is blurry. The mysterious human subject is a man but has been mistaken as woman. Strange light and shadow are all around, with golden luminescence falling from above onto the lone figure who is otherwise dark. The scene is absent of color and the landscape is so amorphous as to be almost anywhere . . . including another world.

The image is popular in my gallery. 0riginally a photograph, I manipulated it somewhat in photoshop. I print it on canvas, stretch it on stretcher bars like a painting, and work on it with other materials so that in the end it is called mixed-media on canvas.

To take a photograph is often called, “the capture.” Usually but a split second. I like the term because it describes indelibly recording a moment in time and preserving it for viewing later in the form of a picture. Most photographers are trained in camera fundamentals and techniques, then use fine equipment to set up shots that are esteemed for detail, contrast, proportions of light and dark, as well as subject matter that is universally acknowledged.

Not so this photo. In October 2008 I was living in Kashmir, India on a houseboat on Lake Dal, at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains. One day I set out with the owner of the boat to ride horses in the mountains and trek. The day was marvelous and included a stop in a village where I painted and met locals. On the the way back, as the sun was going down we drove on a primitive road that twisted down along a river. Occasionally we went by homes and people. I was rather delirious with joy, feeling the air streaming against my face, full of happiness for the encounters of the day and all the beauty I experienced. I had experimented with using my camera for shooting pictures that included my movement and the turning of the earth . . . in other words, taking photos that did not try and stop movement but rather used it in the composition. We passed a man in the road. He wore a phiran—a native costume that is like a cloak that goes to the ankles. I leaned out the window, turned back to look and took his picture. A “capture” that took half a second. The moment proved serendipitous for the image has been enjoyed by many.

When one sells, I make another and add different strokes and textures so that each piece is unique and the art keeps refreshing. Prints on paper also are available.

For more on this photo, see: Footprints

For more on Kashmir, type it in the search field at the top of the toolbar to the right.

Go Figure

Nudes have been figuring into my artwork lately, and were to be the subject of my blog this week, but I have already written extensively on the topic. Here are some of the posts, and to view, click on the titles:

The Artist And The Model

September 15, 2013

 Nude Depiction

January 13, 2013

Naked

 

 

December 09, 2012

Revel In Art

 

November 27, 2011

Pleasurable Dance of the Senses

 

April 10, 2010

 Sublime And Complicated

 

March 29, 2009

The Incredible Terrain

 

February 15, 2007

Worth A Thousand Words

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a Native American proverb says, “It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story”. Every painting contains stories, and that is the beauty of art—that we can look, and if the artist has been masterful and we are awake to the moment of observance and communion, stories can unfold.
There is a story behind my recent piece, called The Gypsy. It begins when I was visiting my friend Carol, who lives in a tiny mountain village, Darrical, in the region of Spain called Andalusia. Carol is Scottish by birth, but has lived in Spain for years with her German, accordion playing husband, Rolf. They lived a vagabond existence on a boat for years before finding their place in the almost deserted village of Darrical. While I was staying with Carol and Rolf, I met Pepa, a young woman artist who spoke English. Immediately I was struck with her “Spanish” looks—dark hair that flowed in wild rivulets around her broad face, olive skin, sparkling eyes, and an almost fierce proud beauty to her.
Soon we were friends and I wanted her to model for me, for photography, which she gladly agreed to. I told her I wanted her to dress in traditional Spanish garb and she found some dresses that worked, and we took her guitar for additional flavor.

Darrical has many homes that have been abandoned and are in various states of ruin. At one time the government planned to create a dam in the valley and made people move out of their homes before the water rose and flooded them . . . but the dam was never built and the homes remained abandoned. I wandered in and around these places, letting them tell me their stories and feeling the passage of time. Pepa and I spent hours exploring the village ruins and I took hundreds of pictures of her.
Now the pictures are available in my archives and I have begun using them in my artwork. I have developed a method of making mixed-media art that combines digital photography and painting. First I begin with an image I like, and then work on it in Photoshop, sometimes adding layers of abstract nuance. Next it is printed on canvas and stretched onto stretcher bars, like a painting. Then I coat it and paint on it as my imagination inspires me. In the end, a final finish unites all the layers and the art goes to my gallery. The new works are not the landscape painting I am known for, yet, I believe in the old Chinese saying “Perseverance furthers” and by nature I am an adventurer and like to experiment in my art.
Click to see more Steven Boone artwork