I found a painting that I did over 10 years ago, back when I was in art school, and it gave me pause. It's strikingly similar to the work that I'm currently doing. Back then, I had fallen deeper in love with the figure and portraiture and decided that oil paint was my favorite medium. I was particularly attracted to color and its symbolic and expressive qualities. Incorporating that into my figure paintings was something that I wanted to explore. Luckily I was given an opportunity to experiment with that in the final project of a figure painting class in college. The result was this blue girl here:
It definitely stood out from the rest of the class simply because it was such a radical departure from the more academic style of painting. But that was the only time I ever tried anything like that for a long time. After I graduated from that school and started going to other classes and workshops the focus was more about capturing accurate colors and values, anatomy and light. However with my Hemorrhage series I naturally gravitated towards the extreme color palette I experimented with in school. Honestly, I think the more traditional tutelage really helped my experimental, abstract side so I won't say that I lost anything by deviating from it for a while. I think that the figurative work I'm doing now is a vast improvement upon what I've done in the past. Plus my style has changed a lot too.
Now that I've completed my first series as an artist, for now I think the plan is to continue working on this new development in my style. I noticed that once I started allowing myself to paint freely while applying what I've learned over the years that my work is starting to have more of an impact, visually and content-wise. Personally I'm excited to see where things will go from here.
Hemorrhage
"When the arm was severed The clot began to hemorrhage..."
This is a bit of prose that I wrote that's supposed to be a metaphor summing up what I think has been going on in my life for the last year or two. I've noticed an influx of thoughts, feelings and creativity after a long dark period of feeling stifled. The sudden change had reached the point of overwhelming me. It was too much for me to process, and it showed no sign of stopping. Hence the word, "hemorrhage." This series is my attempt at sharing the emotional, psychological and even physical hemorrhaging that I felt during that time.
I also associate a number of firsts with this particular series: my first solo art show, the first series I've ever done in my "art career" (if you can call it that yet), and the first time I really started looking at myself as an artist with a respectable level of talent. What isn't new for me is this process of exposing parts of myself through some sort of creative medium. So when people ask me if I'm nervous, scared, or tell me how brave I am, my response is usually an unfazed one. I was more concerned about getting everything finished on time and looking somewhat cohesive. I think I feel more mentally exhausted than anything else. This whole thing has been on my plate for at least the last 6 months! I'm beyond ready to just get this stuff out and move on. The closer that I get to the day when I can get my work up, the more I feel like I have senioritis. I don't have the same fervor to complete the final tasks as I did when I first started working on the series. I don't even want to SMELL paint for a while, I'm ready to enjoy the summer!
At this point it's the final countdown to the next big step in my creative life. So if you're in Reno during the month of July, please stop through Noble Pie Parlor downtown to see the paintings. I would certainly love for you to be a part of this milestone with me. If you can't see it in person, that's ok too! Just be sure to check back here and on my Facebook page for more updates and thoughts, as well as pictures of all of the new work. Can't wait to get your feedback!-Trace ~~<3
Intensity
I worked on this piece last week. This one was a bit of a challenge for me because this is a huge departure from the typical bright color palette that I use. I knew I wanted to paint a figure with "white" skin, just to see where else I would go with it as far as color. It ended up going in a dark or intense direction, I think it was the expression that led me there. There's still a detail or two that I need to add to finish it up and I've already moved on to the next piece, but I thought this piece was worth sharing because I think it's so unusual for me. Maybe this is a side that I might need to explore further at some point?