TRAVERSÉE DE L'ATLANTIQUE (ATLANTIC CROSSING)
160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in)
2011
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Passenger view returning from Miami to Paris on a Boeing 747.
My kitchen counter.
On a boat trip across the huge Lago Argentina to see the Patagonia glaciers.
Inspired by the rolled up yellow hose in the courtyard of the artists' complex where I live.
This painting and the one following were inspired by my partner's apartment in Buenos Aires. The sunlight is very present from the front of the apartment in the morning and from the back in the afternoon.
The balcony of the Buenos Aires apartment faces a park square dominated by a basilica which is close to the apartment building. On the 12th floor you're on the same level as the basilica spires.
ON A DOCK was inspired from a photo taken by my friend Cort McKee of his dock which in turn was inspired by a similar photo I had taken of another dock. I was fascinated by the transparency of the wooden steps gradually disappearing underwater mixed with reflections of the dock on the surface.
For this portrait commission and the one that follows, a brother and sister, I decided to pose the subjects against a white wall with exotic shadows of leaves falling across their faces.
Walking from the bus stop in the suburb of ST. Cloud to the gate of the American School of Paris, which I did for years of teaching part-time art classes there, I passed under this long row of plane trees in every season.
Visiting my niece and her husband in Seattle for the first time I also traveled to Vancouver and Victoria Island. This painting was inspired by the return trip from Victoria Island on a hovercraft. The view from the back of the boat into the wake and sunset going up into a night sky was exhilarating. The second panel was an afterthought when I realized that the painting needed more night sky to balance the composition.
Recent and other oil paintings and colored pencil drawings that are not on my web site
This is the fourth time beginning in 1983 that I have been inspired to paint the sunlight streaming down the grey concrete stairwell in the artists' complex where I live.
My cousin Merry's swimming pool in Florida. She wanted to sell the house when a snake was found in the pool but her husband convinced her to screen in the pool instead, hence the shadows of beams. The hose attached to the pool cleaner reminded me of the snake story.
Lounging in a pool in Chianti country I was looking up at this closed parasol with its ghost-like or carnival of Venice form against blue sky and clouds. The mixture of blues and whites made me think or the 15th cen. ceramic bas-reliefs of Lucca della Robbia that are seen all around Florence.
For this portrait commission of the Winn's four teenage and grown children I asked to come to their elegant Parisian apartment on a sunny afternoon to take photos and for the subjects to dress the way they'd like to be remembered a hundred years from now when the painting will be in the Louvre. The children chose their own clothes. I was surprised to see that Lucy, 21, was seductively dressed as Madame X in Sargent's famous portrait. This turned out to be her dress from her Yale University a cappella group. John, 18, was in his Harrow monitor's uniform minus the top hat; Chris, 16 and the pianist in the family, arrived late and just threw on his father's oversized blazer; and Alice, 11, was in a rather Victorian outfit. It all seemed like so much theater to me and I immediately saw where each protagonist should be placed, which furnishings would eventually have to be to be eliminated to simplify the composition, then did only the one pose with lots of photos of close-ups and details. The result is like the curtain has just gone up and the play will begin. Ibsen maybe?
This portrait commission was painted for friends who are also serious collectors of my work. Of French background the Drouart's presently live in New Hampshire. They also lived for a number of years in Japan, hence the Kimonos.
The Drouart's were determined to induce this Florida boy to try his hand at painting snow (Antoinette grew up in Quebec). Consequently they maneuvered for me to visit them in New Hampshire in January 2002 by arranging an exhibition then of their collection of my work at the Rivier College Gallery in Nashua where they were both professors. We worked with the DFN Gallery in New York who sent other work they were planning to use for a show after New Hampshire. The afternoon I arrived there was a snowstorm. The next morning was clear and sunny. I was up at dawn excitedly trudging trough the snow taking photos. These two paintings are the first.
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