]]> http://www.aaronnagel.com/blog/2010/09/02/musical-detour/feed/ 0 http://www.aaronnagel.com/blog/2010/08/26/a-decade-with-no-name/ http://www.aaronnagel.com/blog/2010/08/26/a-decade-with-no-name/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:59:45 +0000 admin http://www.aaronnagel.com/blog/?p=834 A few weeks ago, I was asked to be a part of a fantastic group show curated by Ken Harmon for Oakland’s Best of the East Bay party. The show was thrown together in less than two weeks and featured a ton of artists from the Bay Area, most of whom I hadn’t met before. It was a really fun night and I loved being a part of something so Oakland, this really is one of the best cities on earth.  Here’s a few (stolen) pictures — the show was covered very extensively by a ton of blogs so If you want to see more coverage, check out these sites:

http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php/opening-photos/2103-a-decade-with-no-name-oakland

http://myloveforyou.typepad.com/my_love_for_you/2010/08/a-decade-with-no-name.html
http://www.hifructose.com/the-blog/859-a-decade-with-no-name.html
http://arrestedmotion.com/2010/08/openings-a-decade-with-no-name-best-of-the-east-bay-party-oakland/
http://www.sourharvest.com/2010/08/15/dabs-myla-partake-in-the-decade-with-no-name-up-in-oakland/
http://dailydujour.com/2010/08/12/shows-a-decade-with-no-name-in-oakland/#more-31162

also, Mike over at Warholian.com made this excellent video of the show:

A Decade With No Name show opening – Oakland, CA – Warholian from Warholian on Vimeo.

Skinner in front of his piece. (If you're in the Bay Area, go check out his show at WhiteWalls right now!)

goofy posing

So that got me thinking about the part of the painting process that doesn’t always go so well. Giving up on a piece always feels like kind of a big deal at the time, it’s an acknowledgment that I just spent a lot of hours on something that will never see the light of day. of course though, it’s hardly the first time I’ve fucked up a painting, and I always emerge with some valuable knowledge about what doesn’t work — and with more motivation to paint something that doesn’t suck. so it’s not time wasted, it just could have been spent a little better. In the last three years or so, I’ve bailed on 3 paintings…which I guess is not so bad. they were all experiments with elements out of my comfort zone; different lighting, composition, environment/bkgd — and they didn’t look horrible, but they didn’t work at all either. I got lucky this last time around (or maybe I’m learning when it’s time to bail),  my last big screw-up took me three months to paint and is one of the biggest canvas’s I’ve ever painted — a much MUCH larger fuckup by comparison.  I’ve been thinking of writing a nice long entry on why that one didn’t work, there’s even elements I like.  but the thought of spending more time on it seems unwise…and depressing. so I’ll leave you with that, hopefully as I get better at painting I’ll have less of these…but I think they’re kind of important too.

PS. since that most recent screw-up lesson, I’ve been working on a piece that I do very much like…so that’s good.

from the Paper Tiger site:

there are only 20, and they came out great. head here if you are interested!

More very soon.

first pass

bkgd + darks glazing

lights glazing + detail work

*these images show only about 1/4 of the whole piece.

"senza pieta", 44" x 36", oil on canvas

Here’s the new piece I had in the show last week at 941 Geary. It’s called “senza pietá” and is an attempt at my version of the classic Pieta by Michelangelo… or rather my version of  Bouguereau‘s version (which I like better). Although it does contain ladies, the composition was very much out of my comfort zone. This is the first painting I’ve done of two full figures, and since I can’t at this point justify painting giant paintings (expensive to build, tiny studio, can’t fit in car, etc etc), the scale of figures was a lot smaller than I’m used to working. This is also the first piece I’ve ever modeled after another, which ended up creating some interesting composition problems with the background and empty space. This painting started out at 48″ square, and I had an entirely different background going initially. It wasn’t until I was about 75% done that the composition and background I had going started to bother me — something just wasn’t working with the space around the figures, and it took a few weeks of staring at it up on the wall to come up with a solution. that solution turned out to be unstretching the 48″ x 48″ canvas, cutting it down to 44″ x 36″, then re-stretching it. the idea of re-stretching a painted canvas seemed super risky (I had never tried it), and I was pretty sure there was a good chance of ruining the painting — but after getting it on a new frame loosely, a generous application of water to the back of the canvas made it nice and tight. [that's the most useful canvas stretching trick ever by the way, I use it all the time -- especially as canvas' tend to get a little loose during shipping]

so that’s the somewhat long-winded story of this painting. I think I will re-visit this type of composition, and possibly even the Pieta, but probably not until I can start working on a much larger scale. a special thank you to aeschleah and brenda for modeling for this one.

Show information below, see you Saturday!

by Coro

941Geary is pleased to present, As They See It, a group exhibition composed of works that are concentrated in realism and figurative representation.  As They See It aims to reflect an evolutionary trend in contemporary art and the growing momentum of conceptually challenging works with increasingly advanced use of media.  This exhibition offers an exceptional collection of works that seek to incorporate a deeper exploration of mediums and technique.

The exhibition features works by Kevin Cyr, Jessica Hess, Isabel Samaras, Shawn Barber, Aaron Nagel, Eric White, Robert Burden, Coro, Dave Schubert, Jonathan Darby, Morgan Slade, Pedro Matos, Akira Beard, Danny Heller, Michael Forbes, Adam Caldwell, Scott Hove, Derek Weisberg, and Fahamu Pecou.

I’ll have more up soon, maybe some in progress shots of what I’m working on these days. check back soon.

in lieu of any new art to post,  here’s my badass cat Ty.

my dad, taking it in

In that last post from the Montreal museum, I mentioned how looking at and absorbing paintings is the best way for me to learn (short of trial and error forever and ever). that statement seems entirely understated when applied to the Met though, and I’m going to do my best to describe what that trip did for me. Let me start by saying that i’ve been to Louvre twice…it’s very prestigious you know.  the last time was almost 10 years ago, and roughly around the time I started painting myself. I wasn’t thinking about art the way I do now, and I’m sure if I delve into why that may be, this post will go on forever. the point is, that I didn’t take too much from it at the time. I went there, It was rad, but that’s about it. I don’t remember very many specific pieces, and I didn’t have the favorite artists list I have now. [lists are very important to me, I'll elaborate more on this another time]. These days, seeing a piece by one of my favorite artists, or a piece that strikes me by an artist i’ve never even heard of — it’s huge…and feels extremely beneficial. that seems both selfish and horribly put, but it’s the best I can do.

Dali's Crucifixion

So now that i’m a big boy, and a few years into attempting a professional art career, I make it to the Metropolitan Museum. Again, I make a point to do no research whatsoever as to what pieces are part of a museums collection. I love the surprise. It maybe has backfired a few times in the past (SFMOMA i’m looking at you), but it really came through for me this time. Within the first few minutes, I ran into my favorite Dali painting. From there, as we made our way from the Modern Art wing to the European Painting & Sculpture wing, it got better and better. We spent over 6 hours there — really long for a museum visit, and major sensory overload…but that place is amazing. This is also not one of those museums with one big painting per wall, very open and pristine. This museum, especially the European Painting and Sculpture Wing, is jam packed with paintings. Paintings on every piece of wall –paintings above paintings, so high you can barely see them. Paintings in hallways and above doorways. it’s fantastic, and totally overwhelming.

My shortlist of favorite painters is as follows (and it’s always getting longer, so this is, let’s say, the abbreviated mid-2010 edition): Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Ingrés, Mucha, Bouguerou. All of whom are part of the Met’s collection. Prior to this trip, I had never even seen an original Caravaggio… or an original Mucha (who is contemporary by comparison). There were Caravaggios I have never seen images of, 500 years old and unbelievable. There was a room full of Rembrandts that would have been worth the trip alone and I will now spend the rest of my life trying to render shadows and backgrounds the way he could. [a note: I realize this is really old news -- apologies to any possible eye rollers out there, although if you've read this blog before, the naiveté is no surprise.] Here’s what I mean:

Caravaggio "The Denial of St. Peter" - 1571 - 1610

Rembrandt - Cornelia Pronck, Wife of Albert Cuyper - 1633

Rembrandt, Portrait of a Woman

Rembrandt, Portrait of a Noble (Oriental) Man - 1632

two small ones from Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - 1852

Alphonse Mucha, Maude Adams as Joan of Arc - 1909

It’s also no surprise that I saw a ton of art I loved by artists I’ve never heard of. Now I get to go home and get to researching, and expand my ever-changing list of favorites / influences / inspirations / benchmarks. I took a million pictures of paintings and information tags, and at risk of totally boring you or really slowing down this blog, here are some more.

Franz von Lenback, Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria - 1902

John Everett Millais, Portia - 1886

Henri Regnault, Salomé - 1870

John Singer Sargent, 1899

And that’s it for my super long museum report — a huge than you to my dad for the nyc trip idea and the excellent company. I was contemplating writing about our visit to the MOMA and Guggenheim, but I don’t think I can do it without going into a “what is art?” (or rather “that is art?”) type tirade.  If anybody is interested in that, let me know and i’ll get it together (if I can hack it). until then, I’m back to painting. thank you!

85º on the roof, nagels do espresso and trail mix

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