Wednesday 16 December 2009

Recent Works







Hi Tamales,
These are my most recent paintings. The fish on the cloth is 36x36 inches, and the other two are 11x14 inches (painted on small canvases just for fun). There were a few comments during the last BFA critique about whether my series should be more about the decorative paintings of koi or the smaller, more ambiguous koi paintings (or "fish portraits" as they were called). Personally, I enjoyed painting the bathtub and fish cloth works more so than the smaller ones, but if the smaller fish paintings have potential, then maybe they're the better route to take. Any suggestions?
Happy holidays everyone! :)
~Liz~

5 comments:

  1. i just looked at these quickly while at work, i'll write more.

    Your paintings have a very dramatic feeling and I think you can make that more obvious if u infused more vibrancy to the colors. I really enjoy the narrative aspect and juxtaposition of space that these take. Really good paint!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liz, do what heart is set on because you will succeed at it no matter what anyone else says. Everybody at the BFA critique liked something that you presented and that means you could pull off any one of these as a series. What blew me away was that those little ones are just "studies." Studies! That means these could go further!

    I like what you had thought about further pursuing and I think you should totally go with it because all you're going to think about is not doing those future pieces. In between pieces or while taking a break from a piece, continue the little studies. That way you have those on the side and if you ever wanted to you could make them bigger.

    I personally like the first two pieces. I like the one on the top the best because the scene is different and the koi looks very realistic. I keep thinking that the koi is in a flooded scene because the tiles are not crisp and outlined.

    I also really like the larger one because there are a lot of lights and shadows, color, and texture to look at.

    Looking at the koi in atypical scenery is better, in my opinion. I don't care too much for just a portrait of a fish in water -it's been done and I want to see something else.

    I really want to see those ideas you had for future paintings because they were very dark and very intriguing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't see a lot of differences between the decorative and the portrait koi. They are all portraits. I think the bfa people tend to want to focus work a little too much instead of letting students willingly choose a broad spectrum of what portraits of koi can be. I mean for my new series I'm doing 4 portraits and 8 action scenes. I don't think I need to limit all my paintings to portraits or action scenes because they all connect already.

    ReplyDelete
  4. first and foremost, you are a great painter. You definitely have talent!

    The small works are every bit as interesting as your bigger pieces, so you have a choice.

    I agree with Liz in that if the small one are just studies, then you have potential to go any where (skill-wise and concept) with these works.

    Work with the fish in unusual and unnatural settings, this makes their meaning more complicated and its more visually intriguing. ((I'm thinking of your bathtub painting)).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks everyone for your suggestions! They've been really helpful. :)

    ReplyDelete