20x10

Sokona, oil on canvas, 20"x10". 2023

Sacred flute music from New Guinea (cover image)

Sosa/Duval

Mercedes Sosa

 

Denise Duval

OOO

 

Ashaninka (Campa) Indian, various materials on drywall, 17"x11"

I've been thinking about randomness recently, and surrealism. Fact #1 is that it's impossible to consciously act random. Why would you even want randomness? Well, randomness is organic, it seems to replicate the processes of nature, while conscious composition seems laborious in comparison. The unconscious is, per the surrealists, and Sigmund Freud, where the truth and the essence of being is situated. Fact #2 is that computers are better equipped to act in a random fashion. They are also better in rational thinking, compared to us subjective creatures. Do computers have consciousness, and thus an unconsciousness then? What I want to know is if the randomness of computers would act according to the same set of laws (as in fractal theories for example) as an organic entity would act. Aretribve  there hidden esoteric forces at play as a result of humans creating technology in their own image? These mystic attributes are surely unintended by the creators of technology (AI included.) The above image is a work still in progress. It was formed as a byproduct of a stencil I made to start off the Top 100 2023. I made about ten variations of this image, using the positive or negative stencil in the processes. 

Happy Holidays by the way. The newest painting is unrelated to that but I was thinking about the Trinity in painting this. Shown are a woman with two children who are depicted on the back cover of the album Indiens et Animaux Sauvages d'Amérique du Sud.  They are from the Wayapi tribe who live in the Amazon region in Brasil, illustrating the Top 100 track Yopanama.

Wayapi Indians, oil on canvas, 12"x12", 2023

Wassie or wasn't she?

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, pen on paper, 12"x9"

The year I first visited the birthplace of the renaissance yields much Italian music, including one from the most famous renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594). He is not from Florence though, but from Rome, well Palestrina, to be precise. I can't remember in what context I heard Osculetur me osculo, but I do remember it made an impression on me.

Alice Stephens, pen on paper, 12"x9", 2023

Alice Stephens (1904-1984) was a Lithuanian-American singer and leader of a vocal folk ensemble under her own name.

Eténèsh Wassié, oil on canvas, 9"x7", 2023

Wassie (b. 1971) is the aunt of Selemnesh Zemene, who prominently featured in last year's Top 100, and, like Zemene, comes from Gondar in Ethiopia.

Giovanna Marini, oil on canvas, 9"x7", 2023

 

Always learning, never getting better

Iannis Xenakis, oil on canvas, 9"x7", 2023

I've done a couple of smaller paintings the last couple of weeks, as life has been insanely busy. These paintings have been an opportunity to work on my technique. In every painting there are new inventions, new to me at least, from things often as simple as how to hold the brush to stumbling across new color balances. I've always felt that way: there has always been something I learned in every new painting. You'd think paintings then get better over time, yet this is not the case. Prehistory was as much art as modernity, every period has its ups and downs. I'm working on getting a website together (it'll be here soon) and I've looked at many older and really old works in the process. Since this is a Top 100 blog I'll share some of the history with you: Here's first Lenny Bruce, from the Top 100 1999. (The work was most likely created in 2000.)

Top 100 1999: Lenny Bruce, oil on found photo, 5.5"x8.5", 2000

The next one I don't know, don't remember much about. It must have been made around 2003 or 2004, as I was experimenting with techniques like those used in this work on paper. I do remember it belonging to a Top 100. I estimate the size being about 3 feet wide. The slide was simply labeled: Amazon.

Amazon group, acrylic and charcoal on paper, c. 2x3 feet, c. 2004

This painting, again I have no idea where it is, might have been the first Cat Power painting, perhaps also from 2004. I think this is 24x24 inches. I used a sponge for this one. Click on the right column on the name Cat Power and see 28 posts over the years that featured a painting of her.

Cat Power, oil on canvas, ± 24"x24", c. 2004

I do know where the next one is though, it's in a box that houses the Top 100 2002.I dragged it out recently because the name came up in conversation. Jad Fair seems to be well connected to the art world. The painting was an illustration for a Half Japanese song.

Jad Fair, 9"x5", acrylic on wood, c. 2003