29 March 2008

Life's Not Still




Life's Not Still: A Series Begins.

As we swing further towards spring,
and I yearn for sunshine and warmth,
and its accompanying abundance,
when everything blooms and brightens,
I have been painting fruit.
Yes, . . .fruit!?

I've needed to work from life for a while now and it has been refreshing.
So, I've set out to bring a new twist to a classical subject.

I have been trying to make a fairly static object breathe with life.
A piece of fruit ripens and withers over time, even after its plucked from a tree; so it is changing in front of our very eyes, like humans. An apple lives, dies, embodys centuries old symbolic ideas, and has been a mainstay in still-lifes as long as painting has been around. With this concept in mind, I want these little portraits of fruit to embody those thoughts, and to be just that, intimate personal portraits.

Here is my first attempt at this new series.
The fruit will be kept lifesized in my paintings and thus the canvases will all be quite small as well.
This first one is 6"x6".

Give me feedback about the paintings or your insight in to fruit.

I'll be posting more later this week so check back in, then I am off to NYC, then Bermuda for a wedding, then back to NYC! Should be fun.

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