R54 Nuclear Puzzle (rearrangement)

R54 Nuclear Puzzle (rearrangement)

24 x 24" ink on panel

private collection

I worked on this picture, on and off, between oil paintings.  It is a continuation of R43, 'Stirring the Waters'.  Here, particles and matter have been stirred up, and the raven-ish angels are busy rearranging the pieces.

The wolfish-looking mouse and man-eating plants at the bottom are a bit of a joke.  I had accidentally erased a file on my computer, and took out my frustrations on the picture.  I did paint over the mouse's fangs, but the mushroom-like plants still look menacing.  The giant dragonfly happened into the picture because I spent a lot of time down by the lake watching them.  They are born in a spectacular eruption out of the water, and do quite a bit of stirring up, themselves.

R53 Swing with Raven

R53 Swing with Raven

36 x 24" oil on panel

private collection

An in-between, fun picture, meant to indulge the temperamental artist.  I had been casting a very critical eye on my recent crowded compositions and gaudy colours.  I decided to paint a real tree with a real raven, and of course the picture is nothing of the sort.

Experimenting, I wanted to try the permanent marker lines again.  I had originally used it in 'Nuclear Picnic', R13, and liked the way the marker faded to purplish black.  It is interesting working with the heavy, irregular outline.

R52 Brain with Mouse

 R52 Brain with Mouse

24 x 24" oil on panel

$500.00

This is the third in the brain sequence of oils in the Raven Series, and is the next progression or phase of the first brain painting, 'Ravens on the Brain', R37.  The mouse is used rather humorously as the motivator or mover, in much the same way a mouse controls a computer.  The eye is now central, the tentacles spiralling outward in perpetual growth, and the 'brain cells' of the previous painting have become neurone shapes.  The fleshy growths are repeated from several other paintings, including the 'brain' watercolours, but here I have added veined tracings, to repeat the branching (growing) pattern of the tentacles and to indicate the taking and spreading of nourishment, perhaps in the form of input information becoming ideas, self-perpetuating.  The blood-red background, the red of inspiration, is the nourishing ground, feeding into the rest of the shapes like lifeblood.

There is a science involved here, too, mathematics, fractals, those wonderful repeated patterns that appear everywhere, in everything, and disappear into both outward and inward perspectives, to infinity.  The branching pattern, seen in the veins, in branches, in tentacles, in trees, in our body's appendages.  The cellular shape, seen in blood cells, in rocks, in water patterns, in bubbles, in solar systems and galaxies.  The wing shape, seen in just about everything that moves, and really just a variation of branching.  Fractals.