I'm painting letters. The letters are on a grid and I know what letter goes to
which square on the grid and what color to paint the letter. The letters will do two things:
The letters will form words, which will form sentences, which will form paragraphs. All the letters will form the first few paragraphs of "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac.
The pattern of color created by the precise placement of the letters and the precise color they're painted will form the face of Jack Kerouac. For those who don't know, "On The Road", Jack Kerouac's first commercially successful book, made him an instant legend for the closely autobiographic adventures he writes about.
The problem was, Kerouac started to live the heroic image he portrayed in the book, and in the classic rock star way, lead to a path of early death from Alcoholism.
Playing With Postmodernisms
This piece plays around with the several post modernism ideas:
Nonlinearity
The entire painting process deals with writing the sentences of a book out of order; a letter here, a letter there. It's absurd. The hope that the painting will even create a face is just that - a HOPE. There is no textbook technique that tells you to "pick a point at random, and paint that point, then pick another, till the work is done". Which leads to:
Supplement
The technique was created out of the blue, using a computer and a program written from scratch. A non-traditional tool, a computer, was brought in to allow the painting technique to be real.
Slippery Signifies
What is it that I'm painting? Am I painting a colorful rendition of 3 pages of On The Road, or, I'm I painting a picture of Jack Kerouac? Both! Neither! It's up to you to decide
Inspirations
Jasper Johns
Many of Jasper Johns drawings, prints and encaustics have stenciled text in the art work itself. My piece could be seen as a Pop Art piece, since it also has text and is a portrait of a well known Pop figure, like Andy Warhol's Elvis's or Monroes.
Picasso - Cubists in general
This piece could very well be seen as Constructive Cubism. I've taken Jack Kerouac, ripped it apart and now I'm putting it back together, in little pieces; in my case: letters.
What I am filming?
I am filming the process of all that is above. The process is of interest itself, since you can't quite easily state that all the letters will put on, in random, which is of interest to other's that seem to like to inflict pain on themselves.
Since the process is so long, the filming is actually done in a time lapse fashion, with one frame shot every 10 seconds. This will create a film that will show time in fast-forward; 4 minutes in every second of film.
It is my belief that a different perspective of the world can be attained when one speeds up or slows down time. An example of this would be a photograph, which basically stops one moment of time forever. Because of this fact, you notice things in a photograph that you wouldn't otherwise. for example; the movement of a fast moving waterfall, a speeding car.
Inspirations
Andy Warhol
Again, another Pop Artist, Warhol used to make the most incredibly boring films; he once filmed someone sleeping, he filmed the empire state building from dusk to morning, he filmed people for 15 minutes.
Warhol's studio, known as "The Factory", was notorious as a hangout of hipsters that fooled around while Andy worked and encouraged their tomfoolery. Much of his inspiration comes unapologetically from his friends and acquantences.
I hope to show that painting is a long process. This long process allows one to Think. Painting is a mostly boring and solitary process; you get to know yourself while painting. Painting does not happen alone, there is communication and the exchange of ideas by the artist from other artists. This is especially apparent in a shared studio setting such as the second floor caves of studios.
I'm going to encourage that things happen while I paint, with the following constraints: nothing detrimental happens to the painting, no one touches the camera or messes with the filming process.
