Sunday, November 20, 2011

WEEK 34 / Papers on a Chalk Board

Papers on a Chalk Board
James Aponovich
oil on panel, 11.5 " x 8.5", 2011


FIBONACCI'S PUZZLE

This painting confused me. It began as a straight forward study of cards, papers and the ever present "Classical" reproduction. Essentially it was meant to be a practice piece ( along with week 30) for a series of trompe l'oeil panels. Everything in the composition is a bit askew except for the still life reproduction that is centered and parallel to the sides, aka. in the middle....
an art school no no.
As I was working with the composition I kept thinking of the early Soviet / Russian artist Casimir Malevich and the Swiss Dada artist Kurt Schwitters. Remember, remove the imagery and you have simple shapes.
But I do use imagery and usually I would have placed a reproduction of a Filippino Lippi or a Botticelli in the center. I instead painted an Aponovich still life of tulips. The problem I encountered was when I was painting the playing card or the parking garage stub I was simply coping the surface, two dimensional to two dimensional. It all rested on the surface plane of the panel, however, when I started painting my own still life I began painting into the panel, extending depth. It was very unsettling, like being a bit sea sick.

It brought to my mind an old Chinese story that goes something like this:
Chuang - Tzu awoke one morning and said that he had a dream that he was a butterfly....
or was he a butterfly dreaming that he was Chuang - Tzu ?



PS. The Fibonacci Series is in this painting, can you find it?

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