acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20" each
$225.00 for the pair
In addition to the collaborative portion of our Dueling Minds show this past month at Concrete Ocean, Dale Wilke and I filled the adjacent space with our own individual works. These two small canvases, "Mecha Verde" were part of my offering. I began painting these in my apartment during a very hot June of 2011, flexing my non-objective creativity in preparation for the collaborative work work to come. In progressive layers I began to lay different shades of green, cutting away shapes with even more values, first lighter then darker, until a flow of movement pleasing to my eye was achieved. Interconnecting lines in dark viridian brushstrokes over these pale fern tones, then back under with lighter seafoam threads, a semblance of some sort of bio-mechanical map began to reveal itself.
From there, the wired, whitish-green pods and dotted ranks of peas seem to align themselves, prompting associations with cellular anatomy and amoebic biology from many viewers. I had began affectionately referring to them as Mecha Verde early in development, and upon discovering this was rough Spanish equivalent to green fuse, the name stuck. These have no metaphor or deep underlying meaning, though I seem to gravitate toward green in the warmer months, and so the humid St. Louis summer I was jogging through every morning that summer may have turned me on to this lush chroma.
As an artist I find use for all color, and while choosing a favorite would be impossible, I do harbor a strong passion for green. Green has now long been a buzzword for the environmental community, spurring the almost thoughtless slapping of an Eco or green label on anything manufacturers or marketing strategists think of. I was being funny when I told my brother a few years ago that "green is the new black", but I wasn't joking. I guess heightened public and community awareness is a good thing though, even if corporate America has greedily jumped on the bandwagon with another kind of green on their minds.
Green always seems to find it's way into fashion and product trend it seems, and so I was delighted when a guest at our recent show enthusiastically shoved the March edition of House Beautiful into my hands, proclaiming Dale & I "up-to-the-minute fashionable" as we stood in front of one of our collaborative groupings sporting the trendy hue. What can we say? We're with it, Man :D That was really fun!
See more of my available works at my WORKS AVAILABLE page at Shawart.com :)
email me if you are interested!
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