No outography!

Nico/John Cale

The painting of Nico and Cale sure looks like it was intended as an outography, but it's not. The painting was intended as a double portrait, with both their shadows moving across the halfway mark, as I had done in 2007 with a double portrait of the White Stripes. The two black shapes representing Nico and Cale were not cut away but rather added. It's more of a stereoscopic image than an outograph. The source was a photo of the two with Brian Eno and Kevin Ayers. The quartet had collaborated on June 1, 1974, from which album Baby's on Fire, by Eno, once was my number 1. But this was a long, long, time ago. The year 2022 features Nico's Secret Side in its top 100. Secret Side comes from Nico's solo album The End... and was produced by John Cale also in 1974.

Since I'm at I might as well forward some other painting I finished over the last two months. There are about eighteen I did not (yet) write about in these pages. I made a series of three double portrait paintings representing four songs from the CD series Siberie on Music du Monde. Three from Volume 4: Kamchatka: Tambours de danse de l'extreme-orient Siberien, and one from Volume 8: Chants rituels des nomades de la Taiga. Two of these paintings, featuring Ivikovna Sajnav with Henri Lecomte, and Anna Vasilevna Kolegova with Irina Khristoforovna Kolegova, I had already done some months ago using images I had used before in earlier versions of the Top 100. I had ordered the the Volume 8 CD from a seller in Switzerland which took forever to make it to my house. I ordered the CD mainly because I needed images. No images of any of the singers in the series can be found on-line the the CD booklets contain several. I knew I would be waiting to post about the first two paintings until I was able to do the third. The singer in the Top 100 from Volume 8 is Uljana Nikoraevna Vasilova. A photograph of Vasilova was not included in the booklet but several others were, including Oktjabrina Vladimirovna Naumova, who had been in a Top 100 several times, and really was due for a painting. She is paired with Alexandra Lavrillier, who assisted Lecomte, and recorded about half the tracks on the CD.

Alexandra Lavrillier/Oktjabrina Vladimirovna Naumova

Ikovna Sajnav/Henri Lecomte

Anna/Irina Kolegova

Woman with a Pearl Necklace (Flora)

Airto (Moreira)/Flora Purim

Some of the most iconic work from art history is portraiture. The painted sculpture bust of Nefertiti by one of the first artists we know by name: Thutmose; the Egyptian Roman Era Fayum mummy portraits of the first and second centuries; the Mona Lisa; Girl with a Pearl Earring; self-portraits by Rembrandt and van Gogh; old master portraits like those by Goya; new master portraits by Alice Neel; Lucian Freud; and so many others, make portraiture a most important genre in the history of art. Sometimes a single portrait of art history is a conscious reference for one of my Top 100 paintings, but more often a host of unconscious references pass the revue while working on a portrait. What I have available to me, unlike historical artists, is photography in combination with the internet. I have access to pretty much every face of every individual out there in the world. For this portrait of a married couple: Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, I didn't need the internet. Their portraits appear, as photographs, on the back of the LP: The Essential Airto, featuring Flora Purim. [Buddah, 1976] There are five portraits on the back, all tightly framed in on oval. Hermeto (Pascoal), Ron Carter, and Sivuca, appear next to Purim and Airto. I've been playing that record a few times and the portrait of especially Purim kept staring at me. I needed to paint her, even though my favorite song from the album, Andei (I Walked), did not quite have enough points to be included in the Top 100 2022.

 

FC Weiland

Frits Weiland/Karel Appel

Poeme Barbare is like the art of Karel Appel; agressive, intense, uncompromising, and Dutch. I can relate to some of these characteristics. Frits Weiland is a Dutch composer and sound artist, who assists Karel Appel on the LP Musique Barbare. The filmmaker Jan Vrijman, and photographer Ed van der Elsken documented the making of it.

Leon Williams/Sarah Webster Fabio

Sarah Webster Fabio is an American poet who recorded several collections of poetry with a musical background. Chromo is from the LP Jujus/Alchemy of the Blues. [Folkways, 1976] The musicians on the record are some of the children of Webster Fabio and some of their friends. They called themselves "Don't Fight the Feeling" for the occasion. The band is led by an experienced and professional jazz musician: Leon Williams.

Alan Vega/Alex Chilton

Fat City is the eight-and-a-half minute opening track from the LP Cubist Blues [2.13.61, 1996] by Alan Vega, together with Alex Chilton and Ben Vaughn. Alan Vega is best known for his work with Martin Rev in Suicide, but not not so much as a solo act, even though he recorded a large string of albums. Both Chilton and Vega have been in the Top 100 several times with their respected bands Big Star, and Suicide.