Fractured Figure III

Comment

Comment by David Rockwell on July 27, 2011 at 1:38am

Hi Kristen, thank you for your thoughtful comments! This is something of a new direction for me. I've been shifting from oil pastel to oil paint, and gaining confidence as I go. As a designer I'm working with typography all the time, and this became a means to get away from meticulous realism and enjoy the process of painting, while thinking about the figure in new ways. 

Comment by Resident Curator on July 25, 2011 at 8:19am

Curator’s Comment:

 

 

The fracturing of the figure seems wholly organic in this piece, and it has an intricacy of shape and interval of positive and negative space that isn’t readily apparent in your other works.  While I value the clean lines and smooth sensuality in your works such as Figure Study VI and Particle V, this piece has a noticeably agitated dynamic that emanates a more intuitive representation.  There seems to be an instinctive manifestation of form and color that is controlled, but ultimately translates into a raw state. The letter forms are somewhat cryptic, adding a veritable gestalt as the random type forms a loose net over the figure.  I also like the stenciled vestiges of the letter forms, which provide transparency to a systematic process, in opposition to the gestural markings.  In places the figure seems to be overwhelmed by the actual painting process, becoming a vehicle of unadulterated expression rather than an exemplar of observational study.