Patrick Caulfield

I've just returned from a super quick trip to Britain. I visited my parents in the Lake District in Northern England. Their town of Kendal has a rather special art museum called the Abbott Hall. It's not big, but over the years I've seen a number of really great exhibitions there. Exhibitions that often times have been far more prestigious and interesting than the small northern location should allow.

This trip gave me Patrick Caulfield  (1936 - 2005). I think it's fair to say there's a lot of  Braque influence in Caulfields work. He's also mixed into the modern pop art movement, a label which I believe he was never to happy with. But it's hard not to see that he's very much part of that movement, all be it perhaps one of the more tasteful and skilled?

 Caulfields work boils the subject down to it's simplest form. Presenting flat color and strong confident black edges.The balance of form and negative space is king, and his careful construction of content provides real power to the work.  Many of his paintings use domestic house paints on hardboard, but he also worked with more traditional oils and silk screens (among other mediums). 

A quick glance may dismiss his work, but with more study the strength of his compositions and unswervingly accurate sense of form and weight, elevates his work to another level. I found there much to relate to;  an artist who works with strong form, bold outlines and confident colors, what's not to like right?...

 

Some of Caulfields work also illustrated a transition through levels of information in a single painting. Sometimes he featured a three dimensional element glued to the canvas, while another element in the painting would be highly rendered in paint; followed finally by the rest of the work presented in his flat tonal forms. I've sometimes attempted a similar idea in some of my still life works, though without such a stark contrast or a 3D element. Personally I felt these pieces less effective in Caulfields work, the transitions not working smoothly and the contrasts to jarring. The example pictured above, shows one of his transitions at play, from highly rendered grapes, stepping back to block flat forms. Despite this paintings transitions appearing smoother I still find these pieces less effective than his best works. When less color and from is used, and the closer tonal shifts and outlines are left to do the work. 

This painting titled 'Sweet bowl' was my favorite in the show. A wonderful sense of space and balance distribution, the blue color shifts perfectly chosen.

A Passion for Petals

 I've been invited to contribute to an art compilation book, focusing on flowers as a theme. The book required that I provided some words on 'why I'm inspired by flowers'.  Now I do like flowers, but the subject is a difficult one. In truth I'm pretty passionate about the importance of the 'Still life' subject as whole (perhaps a post for another time?), but I see the flower as only part of that equation.

Within still life it is the combination of objects that excited me. The grouping of forms - geometric structure of tables and bowls, vases etc. mixed with organic geometry from fruits; and finally the organic sprawl and drama of a bouquet of flowers. The combination of these elements creates the drama! But having said that, I needed to focus on only the flowers for this book. So here, for your reading pleasure, are my thoughts on the subject, (with only a little bending of the truth and embellishment)...

* * * 

-->

Why Flowers?

The everyday subjects of a still life are all around us in our day-to-day existence. They are unseen and forgotten. ‘Still life’ painting asks us to stop and consider these objects, to appreciate the beauty within them, to no longer take them for granted. ‘Still life’ demands our attention for these objects, and no object is as important and dramatic within a ‘still life’ composition than the flower.

To me flowers are an intense distillation of the world around us. Every color imaginable can be found within their petals, leaves, and thorns. Their complex organic geometry a wonder to behold - soft curves endlessly turning into each other, or perhaps strong hard angles and vertical lines, the one overlapping the next. The variety and complexity or each flower is always new fresh and exciting. At any given moment they can show us a range of visual information or emotions - elegance, beauty, simplicity, complexity, life and of course death. 

 

A single flower can yield untold beauty and nuance. It is the job of the artist to present his message and that of the subject within each painting. Just like a camera, a painting captures a single moment in time, a snapshot in the short life of a flower. But what moment to catch, what message to hold for all time? A newly opened flower freshly cut from a spring garden, or perhaps the last hours of it’s life, stems bent, leaves spotted and yellowed, petals fallen to the ground? It is this endless journey of exploration, study and transformation, that present continual inspiration to me.

My work is strongly rooted in the post-impressionist movement. Many link ‘Fauvism’ and artists such as Gauguin, Cezanne, and Matisse to my work. However on closer examination elements of late expressionism and modernist abstraction can be witnessed. For example, my palettes are often bolder, the compositions more contemporary, and color planes presented flatter than the traditional post-impressionists. It’s been said there’s nothing ‘still’ about my ‘still lifes’; each shows movement and energy within the application of brush strokes and colors, nowhere do I feel this is shown better than in the tangled beauty of the flowers.

When approaching one of my ‘Still life’ paintings I always begin with the flowers. From there I find sympathetic drapes, cloths, vases, fruit and other elements that will work with the plant or flower bouquet. It begins with the flowers and the idea grows from there. Color is all important, - the process of translating the color and mood of the flowers within the environment, finding the voice and theme within the painting.

I want my paintings to translate what I see before me, but with my own feelings and ideas. I strive to create a singularly unique vision on the world. A projection of my feelings, and imagination on the subject, providing a distinctive voice that is unlike anything else. I wish to elevate the subject, take the everyday and empower it with the drama and greatness it deserves.

White Tulips

I intentionally kept this one a little softer, not restating the 'Cloisonnism' outlines as strongly and leaving a lot of under painting to shine through. I took some of the palette ideas from work I used to do 7 years ago or so.... I rather like the final effect, not quite as punchy as some of my recent still life pieces.

White Tulips throwback
24X18 Acrylic on Panel

 detail - lots of nice under painting

A Plethora of Pomegranates

It's been too long since I put a post up on the blog and I'm sorry about that.  I've been up to some pretty interesting things, I've painted some great paintings and I should have posted those. I also read a couple of interesting art books, plus I attended a few art exhibition, including David Hockneys 'a bigger exhibition' and I meant to write about all these things, but somehow time ran away with me.  So here's the first post in a while and a plan to put more effort into giving you more frequent postings again.

...What do you think the collective term of Pomegranates should be anyway? I rather like this blog title, perhaps I should rename the work?

  I've been quite inspired recently with these grouping of larger quantities of a still life element. In this case Pomegranates. There's some great texture and color in this painting.

 'A Pom too many?' 

24X26 Acrylic on panel

first of the year!

Happy New year all you blog readers! Here's my first completed painting of the year, it's always exciting to get started on a new year and imagine all the paintings that lie before you.

Iris and yellow drape
36X24
Acrylic on panel

sometimes it needs to rest a while.

Some paintings come together quickly, others perhaps like a fine wine take time and need to rest for a while... This one was the latter.

It began with a number of color plans.  I'd been painting a number of very colorful pieces so I felt a desire to make my tonal and color ranges a little less dramatic. I think this changing of gears, meant the painting needed more time to crystallize in my mind.

color plans

The first few color plans felt a little cold so I opted for a nice rich table cloth color. I then began to work into the painting, but found myself getting stuck with some of the color choices that I'd laid out for myself. The dark blue chairs had been contrived to balance both the blue in the bowl and gray blues around the edge. However as it progressed the color felt too oppressive (it's a shame I dont have a photo of that stage.

Sometimes a small color plan can work 'small', but once it becomes a 'big' canvas it can fail. The painting sat in my studio, in this almost complete stage for a while. Additionally, I'd realized the bouquets foliage was too pale and the pears too muted and flat.  Ultimately all these changes happened quickly with the color change of the chairs from dark blue to a strong green. This unified the background with the foreground better, and made a nice overall green color tone. It then energized me and provided the catalyst to engage the painting and make the other elements come together.

The colors -  The cool blue/grays balancing with the greens. The soft transitions from rug, to floor, to seat cover. This balancing with the other side of the painting, the slight abstraction; where the background gray/blue eats into a foreground element on the table.  The warm colors of fruit and table cloth pulling you into the center of the table and the blue bowl drawing your eye in. An effective arrangement at this dramatic size (always a joy to  paint).

Fruit bowl with white bouquet

30X48     Acrylic on canvas

detail

It's hard to know what to show in a detail, when there's so many nice things to show. If you look closely you can see the original pear color showing through in places, these gaps were left intentionally, fractionally toning the overall pear color.

detail

Sometimes working over an area already painted allows for a more confident, bolder brush stroke. With some good impasto paint.

Zorn

Last week, I went round the Anders Zorn exhibition at the Legion of Honor in San Fransisco. It had been years since I caught an exhibition at the Legion, and I'd forgotten how nice the location is. Nestled in the middle of a golf course, set on top of a hill overlooking the ocean and mouth of the bay. It's simply stunning, especially on a nice sunny day, which is what I had.

Till this point, I'd seen very few Zorn original paintings in life.  I'm not sure why that is, perhaps just not paying attention? But for me his peers (Sargent & Sorolla) seem more prevalent in the major museums around the world, especially Sargent's work. It was great to see the exhibition and to learn more about the artist, in some ways it reshaped my views on the artist and his work, in others is sharpened and clarified them.

I was fascinated to learn how successful he had been commanding a salary of $1500 a week. That's   pretty good today, but a fortune in his time. There's some nice photos in the exhibition of him through the years, it's fun to see the clothes from the era and his waistline expand as the years march on. There's also shots of his Swedish home, a log cabin. Over the years he modified and expanded it in keeping with his lucrative success. It reminded me perhaps of a toned down Swedish version of William Randolph Hearst and Hearst Castle. Of course I'm sure that anyone who reaches the point of vast wealth likes to 'trick out their home'!

If I'm honest, Zorns work has never had the same strength or appeal to me as many a Sargent portrait or watercolor.  Nor does his work comes close to the best that Sorolla has to offer, who's beach scenes and his handling of water are hard to beat! Having said that it's hard to criticize, his handling of his 'nymph like' nude models, paddling on the shores of lakes and rivers. They are so beautiful, subtlety rendered and hard to criticize. Additionally his rendering of water both in oil and watercolor is flawless, and astounding to behold.

-->Many art circles now hold the limited 'Zorn palette' in high esteem. He primarily used a palette consisting of Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Medium, Ivory Black plus White. Today many well know contemporary painters use this palette with small editions and modification. A huge range of colors and tones can be achieved with such a minimalist palette, and if used it gives you strong unity of color across your painting.  Having said that I feel, it's a palette that on it's own is perhaps too recognizable, I feel I can always spot a painting using this palette (despite it's versatility). Additionally, over time a body of work painted in these ranges can get limiting. I confess, I had that feeling in the exhibition.
To sum up, I'm really glad I went to the exhibition and enjoyed getting the opportunity to see his work. And it is truly impressive, however for me, (as mentioned earlier) I'd take Sorolla and Sargent above him any day. Perhaps just a statement of the high mark that all 3 artists achieved?