Ross Bleckner

Flowers, 1994

48 X 60 Oil on Canvas

COPY: 

Artistic Statement: Final Project

Although it isn’t my concentration in school, I’ve always appreciated the practice of oil painting, and the life it conveys when applied to the canvas. It’s easily manipulated, and allows for improvement and alteration for a long period of time. Channeling the style and technique of Ross Bleckner required research, observation and understanding for his technical and mental processes. Aside from working in a larger scale and with oil, I approached my work by developing the concept I wanted to address, much like Bleckner’s work speaks to AIDS (and how it has affected his perception of life, death, loss and memory), and proceeded to paint what he calls a ‘meditation painting’. I focused on inequality, and attempted to convey it by portraying a sort of eclipse. Aside from medium and similarity in technique, I adopted Ross’s use of color and heavy contrast. By painting abstractly, I felt a sense of motion necessary in my strokes, and used a combination of linseed oil, damask varnish and turpentine to thin the paint and create fast clean strokes and blends. As I painted, I thought about all the ways in which I, as a woman, have allowed others to shift my perception of myself, so much so that I morphed my behavior and attitude according to their interpretations of me. So much has changed the older I’ve gotten and the further I’ve stepped into an independent life of my own, and the world only keeps becoming more real and more devastating as your childish naiveté slips through your fingers.  To me, it represents the realization of creating your own life, and stepping out of any image that people and society attempt to force on you. The work was inevitably incredibly satisfying, and I walked away feeling a sense of closure, and deep respect for Bleckner’s more spiritual approach to art.