“Afloat” Image. Ceres Gallery. New York. Solo Show.
If you look at this image, you see a man carrying a woman out of flames. You may think the man started the fire with a fallen ash from his cigar. That is the subject matter of the collage. I am going to try to explain the reason it is a work of art.
Compositionally, this is how I do a painting, collage or drawing when I work with a square.
I cut out magazine images I like. I never use photoshop or take images from the internet. In this case, I was working with two figures, but the process is the same as if I were working with shapes. I usually linked them together by color. As I did here, making the composition a spiral going counter clockwise. Beginning in the center and following the orange around. I broke it up with the blue/gray sky and the figures in black and white. But then I return to the orange again in the center of the circle.
Most of these one hundred square collages are successful because they are circular in composition. I may have strayed from the spiral format a few times, but I usually try to stick to that design pattern.
I know this is a dry way of looking at the piece, but it is the art part. I also know that some of my subject matter is a little zany, but by sticking to a good composition and adhering to good color relationships, the image “works.”
And then I can afford to think about the man and his cigar ash. And of course that woman is looking like, “Get me out of here!”
A metaphor for the energy of the world today………..prescient.when did you do this one?
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Last night! Right on target? 🙂 Astrologically of course! 🙂
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I thought the man was going to throw her into the fire, all the while nonchalantly smoking that cigar, kind of ironically…I think I read too many mysteries and thrillers?
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Yes! Quite an interpretation, Claudia!:)
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Thanks for sharing your process, Hollis…it’s very interesting. I thought a volcano was erupting in the background.
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Yes, I believe it is a volcano. I love volcanoes. So it must be. Very astute, Jill!
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It felt older to me, like WWII and he was rescuing her from a bomb. And the smoking thing was just part of the determination to carry on with life. However my interpretation is completely culturally inappropriate.
I like the description of the circle within the square. It makes a lot of sense. I was only ever brought up with the rudiments of classical composition and told “this is what works”. Which I guess is true if you are churning people out to pass exams.
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How funny about churning people out to pass exams!!!!! No, they use that term in art all the time. In art school, it was so mysterious. “It works” had this reverence to it. You never really knew what “worked” and what didn’t then. It was all crap to the teachers. Until you “got” it. Things (that word again) should be explained more directly. No I think you are exactly right about the two figures. (in your time of WWI) Only I cut it out of a magazine with pictures from a fire in NYC. You are not on my reader. I have to look into it.
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I love to hear your thinking process – it puts a whole new perspective on your collages for me. By the way, WordPress for some reason, stopped your posts arriving in my reader, so for a few days I thought you were out busily Christmas shopping. Hopefully I’ve rectified the situation now.
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Thanks! Yes, I felt the same about you. (You being so busy with Christmas) Glad you rectified it too! Christmas? Well, this blogging does take time, you know 🙂 Whew! So worth it though, right?
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Absolutely! It keeps me sane 😉
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