P276 Inter-Facial Difficulties

P276 Inter-facial Difficulties
18x20" digital collage, oil on canvas
Private Collection

This collage was done for the InterFaces online exhibit, the theme being 'the masks we wear'.

January 10, 2001: I began assembling two mask paintings for the exhibit, both with collaged elements, P275 and P276. Working on them both at once, using the digital shots I had taken of my own face and hands, I came up with quite different compositions, one where the hands and fingers seem to form a mask, and one in which the hands are holding or removing the masks. After they dried, I did acrylic under-paintings in French ultramarine, cadmium orange, and yellow ochre, carving out shapes.

January 11, 2001: Last night I decided to work up the second collage, P276, in oils, and I spent some time on the left hand of the figure in the far right. The ochre under-painting had taken away from the overall composition; being too close to the orange of the masks, but it makes an excellent ground for the flesh colour. In this painting, which I have rather whimsically titled "Interfacial Difficulties", the orange colouring and the cutting away of the head and hair separate the facial area, but there is no head behind it, no creature behind the mask, so to speak. The bodies are all flesh, just necks, torsos and arms. I have thought of adding lumps behind the masks, to represent heads, but am intrigued with the idea of there being nothing behind the masks.

January 12, 2001: The afternoon was spent working on P276, the oil collage. The image took a sudden twist when I began isolating some of the hand shapes, making one orange. Suddenly the hand becomes an object demanding attention. Here I am, it says, insisting it is different from all the others. The addition of crimson, which adds mauve tones in the flesh and blue, also adds more dimension. The mask, with its bulging eye sockets, is bothersome, one is not sure why, until one realizes that it would be impossible to see out of it. Perhaps every mask in the picture should have a flaw or difficulty.

Paleozoic Series