Study for Corridor II

This painting is titled Study for Corridor II only because I believe that it's a cop-out not to give paintings unique titles. In a way, painting titles are the only form of poetry I have any capacity to appreciate. They are one line haiku-like statements that create a point of reference, a method of contextualizing the painting holistically using the symbiosis of a major visual work and a minor literary work. So personally, I perceive "Untitled" works to be intellectually lazy; placing the burden of mental effort on the viewer to puzzle out the artist's intent, rather than making an effort to guide them to it. I'm sure opinions differ, which is why I talk about perception and not objective truth. I digress.
The reason I was so reluctant to title this the way I did, was that perennial occurrence, in which I had actually abandoned this painting for some time before even conceiving Corridor II. This is another instance in which I must reluctantly consider what I had intended to be a work in its own right to be a study of a later work. I considered different titles, but to title it otherwise would be dishonest.

I began by utilizing techniques I had discovered by painting Corridor I, painting a two-tone black and white underpainting on primed MDF. I am making a conscious effort to paint things that enjoy painting, and so I initially gravitate towards compositions instinctively, without really reasoning through it at the time. Recently, this results in head and shoulders compositions. Retrospectively, I think this appeals to me because it provides immediate visual cues as to the nature of the painting even in silhouette or at a distance. It also has a strong triangular composition with most of the visual weight anchored at the bottom, which I think gives presence to the work.
I've heard it said that people paint what they enjoy painting first and best in their compositions. I enjoy painting eyes, so I filled my face with them. In hindsight, this turned out to be a mistake.

I have a hard time with tedium when I paint. If a painting becomes unpleasant to work on, I don't want to do it anymore and I'll go paint something else. Oh, how this happened. There are so many freaking eyes on this thing, by the the third pass I didn't want to see any eyes for a while. I've tried to value the work ethic of pushing through difficult portions of the work, but over and again I've found out this results in me doing shoddy work just so I can be done, and that's what almost killed this one. I put a bunch of ears on it at one point and it looked like a bunch of Shreks mashed together. I started throwing all kinds of washes on it and it turned magenta and foggy so I tossed it in the basement in disgust for a few months. I did NOT feel like having a picture of it at that stage.

After I'd had a chance to get over eye fatigue (ha ha), I wanted to do a painting that was like the one I'd abandoned, but as a continuation of the Corridor series and of the scale and ambition of the last Corridor painting. The aptly-named Corridor II will be detailed in a subsequent post. In the process of making Corridor II, I used many of the lessons I had learned from mistakes made on my unwanted stepchild of a study. Moreover, I was learning lessons from Corridor II that made me realize that I could salvage the study. This is the first pass.



Once I got off my butt and started working on it (procrastinating, incidentally, from working on Corridor II) this painting came together quickly. This is a few small passes from its completed stage. I used to be big into incorporating type, but I've come to regard it as a crutch, so I've been avoiding it. This time, I liked the idea of it, but I tried to make it somewhat obscure and not so in your face. I'm really terrible at both painting background and at wanting to paint backgrounds, so at this point I'm doing a lot of looking thoughtful and going 'hmmmmmmmm' until I went with "I don't know, red foggy trees or something" and I approve of it. I think I'll try a more refined version of the same in Corridor II.