Tag Archives: oil

Inspiration – Hanneline Røgeberg

Posted on by under Art

Hanneline Røgeberg is a great Norwegian-born painter who teaches at Rutgers. I’ve admired her work for many years, cited it in my graduate thesis for Indiana University, and poured over it in writings and classroom discussions.

Alloy, oil on canvas, 48 x 49 inches.

She really is quite a treasure. I appreciate her serious commitment to painting as a form, her philosophical engagement with that form, and her deep willingness to pursue material and application over the image as such. Below are some links that can introduce her work and words to you:

Form and Story: Narrative in Recent Painting discussion at MW Capacity (guest post text by yours truly)

Hanneline Røgeberg talk at Boston University (this talk is fantastic and I encourage you to watch it a number of times – so full!)

Her personal website

Balzac I, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches

Check her out, and seek out more for yourself!

Orientation?

Posted on by under Art, Updates

My most recent completed work is an oil painting, 48 inches in diameter, titled Certainty. Because of the nature of the ideas involved in this piece, it was constructed in a manner that did not allow for an “up” orientation. I actually never painted it from the same picture-plane position twice. I frequently moved my model and altered my position of observation with each session.

The work has any number of “correct” reading orientations, but I’d like to settle on one or find a way to spin the work slowly so that many possible positions are presented to different viewers. Click the image below to see a large GIF of the piece. The GIF shows 14 different “stations” of the painting (give it a few minutes to load fully). What’s the best way to view it?

Beginning Painters, Spring 2010

Posted on by under Life, Teaching

I have a pretty good crew of beginning painters this semester at the University of Missouri. I’ve been teaching the course a little differently this year, jumping into making stretchers and stretching canvases, working directly with color from the start, and assigning many, many more preparatory works than I usually do. I’ve been showing them Diebenkorn, Tim Kennedy, Sangram Majumdar, Catherine Murphy, and Uglow. The students seem to be responding.

We’ve been talking a lot about the color and direction of light, focusing intensely on how value shifts over forms and through spaces. I’m enjoying a lot of what they’ve done. Here are a few of the current project (all are oil on canvas, each approximately 14 by 14 inches):

Sarah Burch

Arin Hennessey

Dannah Moore

Jesus Roman

Katie Westhusing

Alyssandra Wilkey

Neil Gavett, Model Extraordinare

Posted on by under Art, Life

The Columbia Daily Tribune is running a feature on Neil Gavett, one of the primary models I’ve used in my work over the last couple of years. He’s a pretty cool guy, has an interesting back story, and a staggering plethora of tales to tell. Neil is also a professional art model; he’s posed for nearly 10,000 hours and has been working consistently for over a decade in the Mid-Missouri area. Below is the first painting I ever did of Neil (Fall 2007).

neil I’ve been honored to get to know the man. In working with him, I have tried to create images worthy of the symbiotic relationship we’ve developed, a relationship that could never happen without his deep intention and purposeful action as a man and a model.

Here’s to many more pictures, Neil!

UPDATE: Here’s a related item from the New York Times today: “In the Altogether.”

Iconoclast, Stage 12 or 13

Posted on by under Art, Updates

ballou iconoclast stage 12 detail

Well, I’m still moving forward on the Iconoclast painting. It’s now rounding the final corner and I’m feeling the tensions and densities that I was aiming for coming out. Above is a detail showing the working, building, statement and restatement across the structures of the head and upper body. Below is a full shot of the piece. I’ll add some statement regarding the reasons for the piece and what I’m aiming at with it once it has announced its completion… probably a couple weeks.

ballou iconoclast 12