New Work for a New Show

So, the other main subject matter I use is food, particularly sweets. One of the artist that I have study quite a bit is Wayne Theibaud, a California artist who was part of the Bay Area Artist group (it include Elmer Bishoff, Richard Deibenkorn, David Parks and others). One of his themes are food items arrange in cafeteria presentation style, he is known for his strong shadows and thickly applied oil paints. This piece entitled, "You Can't Get Around It" was the most recent piece I created for my current exhibition, "Greig Leach: A Visual Life" at Metrolux Gallery in Lexington, KY. As I was preparing for the exhibition I found this frame digging through my storage area. The piece measures 52"x62" and is created with Oilsticks on paper (as is most all of my art work). The imagery comes from Rocco's Bakery on Bleeker Street in NYC. I have sketched and photographed their goods on numerous trips to the city, using the sources for this and other abstractions that make you hungry for confections. Since the frame was nearly square I felt that the best compositon would to be a circular arrangement around a central object. I used the eclairs as a directional element and then used the petit fours to establish and break a repetitive rthym. Given the complexity of the repetitive shapes I felt it was necessary to limit the palette. I choose the orange/blue complimentary scheme with a sub-scheme of red/green. The primary scheme adds to/creates the brilliance and pop of the objects, supported by the strong light and cast shadow.

The exhibition has a reception on January 6th and runs to the 13th of February.

There Is Hope for Us All

Some images have to be made, they imprint themselves into your brain, burn ther until you can get them down. This is such an image. Our good friend Mary Sue faught a valiant battle with small cell cancer finally sucumbing in August. My wife and I had been helping where we could and spending time with our friend whenever possible. As it became obvious that the end was near Mary Sue's friends, theatre colleagues and family gathered at her home to say good bye. I was lucky enough to be there as she died, a moving , inspiring moment that strengthened my faith, added to my belief in family,and showed me the mystical relationship between life and death. This event and her life was celebrated in a memorial service hosted by her fellow actors, muscians and directors. What was obvious to me was how each artist takes in a singular event and through their respective art forms creates a piece of powerful art. A musian wrote a song and played it on a new guitar created and named for Mary Sue, playwrights wrote wonderful stories, actors paid homage to her work and I made this painting.

The painting is the moment after her death, her mother said, "Its okay dear, you can go." she breath two more breaths and then slipped off.