“I do not fully understand… but the holy words will be obeyed, I swear it!” Join the Yang party!

I am currently creating a new body of work in the medium of collage. The project started when I was placed in charge of the shimmering screens drop-in art activity at the Asian Art Museum (November 2010). After working awhile with the provided collage materials, I noticed that my “shimmering screens” were taking the shape of dystopian cityscapes à la Blade Runner.
The Joseon dynasty palaces found in the AAM’s photography brochures became the perennial pieces to these works. I found a lot of interesting details in the Korean palace architecture that could be transformed to fit in the context of science fiction. From the beginning, the found images formed the path of the picture. There was never a plan or a preliminary sketch that guided these compositions. They simply grew.

More recent works in the series, present conflicts between nature and man-made structures. These landscapes are presented to be hostile and uninhabitable. I feel that the fractured skies help communicate this idea. If I had chosen to paint these landscapes, the construction of the ruined atmospheres would have been more of challenge.

When I completed the last collage entitled “Roots” above, I felt that the series would soon end. By the time the last collage was completed, there were only  five or six Korean photography catalogs left for use. Throughout the making of these works, I was mindful of errors and corrections. These issues are less severe when I’m painting a picture. The seemingly limited materials forced me to be more critical of where the pieces were to be pasted. Recently, my boss let me take an entire box of the catalogs from the AAM. Looks like the series will go on.

“The essence of film is to document human behavior . We dramatize it, therefore it becomes fiction. But really what we’re trying to create is a reality, so you’re documenting the behavior of the people in the situations that we’re dealing with.” – Edward James Olmos

My Film Stills exhibit at Cowboys & Angels came down today and my studio is now a bit smaller from all the work that came back. Big thanks to everyone who stopped by to see it! I am also grateful for Marisa McCarthy and her team’s hard work in putting up the show (they only did EVERYTHING).

What follows are the works that for some reason or another didn’t make it into the show:

1:13:39

I really liked this one but technical difficulties stopped me from putting this in the show. This painting was made when I was experimenting with several different glazing techniques. In the end, the painting yellowed from the linseed oil and clumps of dust particles got embedded into the surface. Apologies to my lovely and handsome models, Leilani Joy and Ilya Petushkov. I will get around to redoing this painting someday.

1:16:40 and 1:22:07

Marisa and I decided that down syndrome girls in straight jackets and women with external fetuses were things that people don’t want to see while they’re getting their hair cut. The fetus painting was the last painting I finished that fits in the film series. It’s a bit of stretch for the whole “autobiographical statement” I came up with. I don’t think I’ve ever quite reached these levels of insanity* or derangement* (can’t say these two words without doing a Werner Herzog impression).

And that’s it for the pieces that were considered but didn’t make the cut! For a fuller look at this series of paintings please visit my flickr page. If you’d like to see the painting “1:16:40″ being made, check out the painting sequence from my October 2009 entry on Beefcups.com.

I’ll leave you with a work in progress. I got a lot of positive feedback about the Yeoman Rand painting at Cowboys & Angels. The piece below will follow the same color and design aspects. In this photo, the painting kind of resembles a gigantic Polaroid.

Untitled work in progress