This painting assignment was a duality painting.
So one's subject or approach/technique would have within it opposites.
Such as:
cold/warm
dead/alive
smooth/rough
organic/geometric
dark/light
destruction/restoration
etc.
I was originally going to do a painting concerning life/death. So I began to collect images that would really juxtapose each other. Pictures of a cemetery, one of a baby, a building being torn down, a building being built and so on.
But as time went on it just wasn't feeling like the right approach--seeming almost trite--even though I had really wanted to do a painting with a more direct narrative--with a surrealist bent.
So it just wasn't working for me, so I decided to return to the hollyhock again and explore the dead/alive duality with the flower as the subject. I would say that it also has a bit of organic/geometric dark/light dualities within it as well.
So I began with rough sketches to figure out my compositional approach. I redrew the bottom half at least three times, before finally deciding to expand on the elements of the upper half of the painting that was already really working.
I included fresh new blooms in conjunction with dead blooms/branches, all from photos I had taken of the hollyhock I had in my backyard.
I'm fascinated how in it's short life span it grows like crazy--fiercely, heavy with pollen exploding heavy everywhere-then it begins to die off, but new growth begins even before the old is entirely gone. The base remains greenish even through the trials of winter, then bursts with life again as soon as the weather is just good enough to support it. Guess I see it rather symbolically. It accepts it's seasons completely and is nearly always in a state of renewal. I like that.
I chose to gesso a masonite panel approximately 2ft X 4ft as my surface.
Completed piece:
Overall there's a sort of collage feel to it, yet it almost feels a bit like one element. I chose the side view of the fresh blooms because I liked the triangular bell-like quality they have when seen from the side.
I also added the pollen as a last thought---after viewing some photos where the blooms had petals so heavy with pollen...with some pollen just tumbling onto other blooms. I was just sort of struck by how the pollen was symbolically representing life just pouring out and sputtering out in an overflow. The flower has no consciousness of it's life being a short one, and doesn't hold back it's passion for life. So along with some of the lines running from the petals, and the geometric form riding along the side of the bud, I feel that the pollen adds another level of movement to the piece.
