Embrace

"Embrace" 2012
acrylic on canvas, 20 x 24"
$150.00

Part of the challenge preparing work for the recent Dueling Minds show at Concrete Ocean was stepping outside my comfort zone and working in a completely nonobjective manner, something I'd only dabbled in before. Given a title and size to work with, what could I say about the subject without a figure, landscape, or object with which to tie a narrative or story to?

Several of my canvases had already been washed in color and basic compositions put into place before I'd assigned titles, and looking down the list "Embrace" seemed to fit the iridescent, gold warmth of this canvas. Denying myself the usual anecdotal machinations of my work, where to begin was the trial, and looking around the studio for anything to spark my imagination I noticed a cymbal from my drumset leaning in a dusty corner. Laying it on the 20 x 24" canvas, I was amused & delighted to see it fit perfectly- it wedged into the sides in a most pleasing way, pushing itself forward into picture plane. I went on to use this unusual stencil on a few of my canvases for the show, penciling the shape onto the washed canvas, and then embellishing around, inside, and over the top of the circle in many layers of  acrylic.

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