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Fantastic turnout for our opening at Paula Estey Gallery in Newburyport on Friday night. Thanks to all of those who made it by. Lots of fun. Show up through June. Happy to announce I will be represented in the north shore area (north of Boston) by the lovely Paula Estey Gallery in Newburyport. Several paintings from my Adagio and Botanique series (including these two) will be part of this season's inaugural exhibition opening April 27th.
Pleased to have many of the paintings from my Adagio series included in the December edition of the beautiful contemporary arts magazine, The Woven Press, Vol. III #12, pages 11-16. It's always nice to have the work exposed to a new audience. Click the link here to see the issue: THE WOVEN PRESS. Below: Adagio XXIV, oil and fabric on canvas, 30" x 30"   Very nice article about my work, and review of paintings now up at Greenfield Gallery in Greenfield MA, in today's paper, along with a cool short little video of me working away in the studio. Video also now up on my website under the About heading.
http://www.recorder.com/…/artbeat-david-skillicorn-its-not-… Shown here: Adagio XXX, oil and fabric on canvas, 24" x 24, which is currently up at the gallery and was featured in the article.  The Greenfield Gallery is a new gallery opening this week out here in western Massachusetts. (on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheGreenfieldGallery). Opening reception this Friday August 7, 6 - 8pm, I'll have three paintings up for their inaugural show through September. Shown here: Adagio XXVII, oil and fabric on canvas, 24" x 24" which will be in the show.  I'm often asked about the titles I give to the paintings. Each one in this series is named "Adagio", which of course is the musical direction a composer might incorporate into their score, directing performers to play "slowly, with ease, gracefully."
For me there is something musical about these paintings and so I like the name in that sense. But more importantly, each one is created over time, very much in the spirit of adagio.... slowly, gracefully. Perhaps this is also my suggestion as to how one might best experience looking at the paintings as well. In addition to titling them Adagio, I've taken to naming the day and month the painting was begun, and the day and month it was finally completed as part of the title. This gives each painting its own sort of "time signature", distinguishing one from another and also conveying the life of its creation over time. So the 48" x 48" painting in this post, which evolved over many months, is titled Adagio 6/5-12/28  For larger works I often will paint them on the floor. This way I can more easily get around the piece and assess it as I go along. There is not necessarily a top or a bottom to the painting for much of this time. Eventually the orientation will emerge along with the rest of the painting as it resolves. The painting I'm working on in this picture is on a 48" x 48" canvas.
 My work has been chosen to be featured in the Color Field Painting Collection on Saatchi Art's homepage. You can see the collection here: http://www.saatchiart.com/art-collection/Painting-Collage-Drawing/Color-Field-Painting-collection/667232/90234/view Curated by Bridget Carron of Saatchi Art.  A painting begins for me as an act of will. I start with intention, a plan to enter into a new work and find my way through. I know exactly what I want to do, yet have no specific image in mind. I know which steps to take, but have no idea where they will lead. In the beginning I just have the will to start. The beginning can be one the most exhilarating parts of the process.
Will is a very powerful human quality, and one that has been central to some or our greatest achievements and most horrific catastrophes. When will is connected to imagination and poetic sensitivity, it can be an amazing force which leads to truly great things. But for me, will alone cannot finish a painting. At some point, something else must take over. I need to be motivated enough and have the will to pursue the work, but at the same time passive enough to allow myself to open up to other sensibilities. At that point, I am following more than leading, responding rather than directing. Its a delicate and curious balance. In some ways as a creator one needs to be naive, and be willing to surrender to something outside what your mind might be telling you to do. In this way it might be said that my paintings are created out of a combination of intention, intuition and improvisation.  Here are some medium sized canvases in various stages of evaluation/completion. While I've refined my approach and motif for this particular series of paintings, I regard each one individually as it develops. When I look at a painting in progress, I hold out for a certain moment of insight/feeling to lead me to the next step. Sometimes that might take awhile to reveal itself in a particular painting. That is one of the reasons why I usually have several paintings coming along at the same time.
I am open to being surprised at what might come up; the size and position of a shape, the creation of a unique color, its relationship to the other colors. I'm looking for a certain harmony, resonance, and mystery to emerge. A painting will not be done until it does. In this way, even though there is a similar horizontal motif across the series, in the end each painting develops its own unique look and atmospheric mood. |
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