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.