Further additions to the Black & White series, here. By the way, you may have noticed the "white" isn't entirely white, nor are these paintings entirely black and white, either. This is because I begin them all with an underpainting of an orangish brown in fluid acrylic, over which I scumble white. I like the brushy textures I get, as well as the little bits of brown showing through, which kind of wind up making faint little taupe textural elements in the ground. When my knife scrapes through the underlying white, occasionally, the blending of black, white and brown adds a faint bit of warmth to the black, as well. I love it when that happens.
So, I guess, in revealing that fact, I've let you know that these paintings involve a three-step process; they're not as spontaneous and gestural as they may appear. Nothing wrong with that, though. I never said I'm trying to "paint from my unconscious" or anything like that. I admit to being somewhat more formalistic than some other Abstract Expressionists. But then, Kline and De Kooning pre-planned their "spontaneous" images. Kline did sketches on phone book pages, while De Kooning once told Kline he should try tracing shapes made with an opaque projector. So, I guess that makes me somewhat more spontaneous than they were. It really doesn't matter, anyway. The viewer only sees the completed painting, not the process, and most don't really care what went into its creation, unless they're hung up on the assumption that it's the relative degree of difficulty of the process that makes it "art." But, that's craftsmanship, which is not really the same thing. I subscribe to the idea that it's the final image that counts and that whatever it takes to create it - whether laborious or easily executed - is only secondary. While I'm a process oriented painter and my images derive entirely from my choice of materials, tools and, above all, technique, it is still the outcome of this process that is the art, not the route taken to its realization.
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