The Work, It Grows

I have been trying to wrap my head around getting images and work ready for the biennial at the CMCA in Rockport, Me this week.  It is not easy to think about my work in this manner.  There seems to me a big line across which I do not usually step between the contemporary art world and the Street Influenced, Illustrative paintings that I produce.  That said, I know that there is work of that nature in major museums now.  It is very much what is contemporary, but somehow it doesn't really feel like fine art to me if I am producing it.  I have no idea why.  I am just as educated and equally as prolific as so many of the more heavy hitting "fine artists" in the world.  At least I very much think that I am.  I don't understand the hang up.  I can't even really blame the disconnect on a lack of references or allusions to philosophy or art theory.  I spend a good deal of time reading.  Sometimes it is theory and philosophy.  Often it is poetry or fiction, usually things that end up falling in the literature section.  I really haven't much interest in the Science Fiction and Westerns that I loved when I was a kid.  I can't help but think of the great Egon line from Ghostbusters 2 when I say that; "I had a slinky once, but I straightened it."  Absolutely no fun dude.  But actually I don't really feel that way.  I really enjoy the materials that I read.

I digress though.  The fact is, I wonder why I have difficulty seeing my work in a fine art setting and I really don't know why.  I have been trying to get over this feeling.  This series of paintings that I have started include  mixture of ideas from a bunch of different work that I've done in the past.  Oddly I feel like the juxtaposition of many of my ideas allows the work to maybe speak on one of those more intellectual levels.  I at least think that it begins to speak in the same language no matter how rudimentary the translation.

My studio assistant told me the colors in the second painting were very retro.  I wonder about that.  Perhaps the color then mixes with my interests more.  Certainly my reading interests do not constitute incredibly new knowledge or technologies.  She might be on to something.

More work to come soon.  I have one more in this series started and intend to do more tomorrow as well.

Peace
-Mike