This piece was created as my first painting of spring semester 2021. I'm currently taking an online version of Advanced Painting, so I was able to work on this as a part of that class.
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Growing is a continuation of the ideas in my previous painting Birthday, which also features my younger brother Patrick. My source image for this painting was created in procreate from a film photograph I took of my dad and younger brother this past fall. One of the ideas I wanted to continue in this painting was using digital tactics to abstract images prior to actually putting paint to the canvas.
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Conceptually, I think this piece is one of the strongest I've created. While Birthday was more of an emotional dump of feelings about growing up, through some more intentional time spent with the conceptual side of this piece in the beginning, I believe more comes through in the final painting. When describing this piece the most overarching statement I could make would be that this piece is less about my dad and brother, and more about my relationship with them and my family as a whole. Moving into my first apartment last fall after having my freshman year cut short, and in a lot of ways having to redo all of the "growing up" I had started the year prior, I was feeling the familiar strain from a new relationship dynamic with my family -- something I had unlearned after moving home in spring 2020.
As we approach the anniversary of the University of Minnesota closing down from COVID-19, I think this painting is more than appropriate. Change is something I've learned to embrace over the past year in life and relationships, and I tried to channel some of those emotions into this painting.
Outside of my sophomore year feelings, some other ideas I'm interested in for this (now) series is the bigger concept of the permanence, or lack thereof, of memories, and the different types of emotions I can convey through digital manipulation. One of the reasons I am drawn to using film reference photos is the amount of degrees from reality it creates between the actual event and the final paintings. The process of the photos getting taken, the film being sent off and developed, getting digital copies, downloading them, manipulating them, and then finally outputting that image onto a canvas puts a large gap between reality and the painting. The nostalgia conveyed through film is something I want to capture in my work, and I'm very interested in how digital editing could enhance this feeling. "Deeper meanings" in my work was something I hadn't fully considered until pretty much the end of this past fall, so learning how my process can reflect concepts I'm working towards has been really rewarding.
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Technically this was one of the most challenging pieces I've painted, and really pushed me to be conscious of value and color. Another "realization" technique-wise I've been slowly having within my work is that I've been unintentionally struggling against painting as a medium. I have been pushing against all of the things that make painting, painting: opacity, streak and brush marks, and in general random imperfections. All little things I love to find in other artist's works. With this painting for the first time I started to try to let those things work for me instead of trying to get rid of them. For instance, letting a color stay slightly transparent when it didn't make a difference, or leaving some evidence of brush marks. Small steps, but for a long time I've been striving to create the most technically sound work, which I thought was: super opaque and consistent color, and a smooth, even surface with no imperfections. Like all things these definitely have their place in painting, but if this is all I'm going for then why would I go to the struggle of painting images when I remove all signs that it's even a painting? Clearly some interesting art questions have been surfacing in my work; important food for thought if nothing else.
Following this painting I'm intending to continue the series; some ideas I'm looking into are image negatives or other filters, warping images in photoshop, and possibly incorporating different neon colors. For now I think I am going to continue with the family theme, but could see these ideas extending outside of that idea in the future.