This past month has been about experimenting with different ideas and seeing what works and what doesn't work. This post is not as cohesive as the others I think but I believe working through some of these ideas is part of the process.
'The Judgement of Paris'
After creating a large body of work of solely acrylic on canvas surfer girls I was ready to start something new and visit the idea of using different mediums. With the advice of my mentor, we thought about using a more translucent medium such as watercolor. Involving the elements of the sea into my work seemed more appropriate to my central idea. Because I have essentially little to no experience using watercolors I decided to embark on a few small studies to try things out. With this watercolor, 'The Judgement of Paris' I used ocean water collected at the beach after a hurricane surf session at the end of September. Mixing salt water with the watercolors is taking the elements that I was just surfing in and applying them to my artwork. Using the title, 'The Judgement of Paris' I am again bringing up the representation of women in art history, as usually docile, constrained, female nudes. Here, I aim to show the female in action among the elements of nature.
Next, I began working out which classical figures to use in my surfer girl compositions. Having done some collages of the subject I was now interesting and seeing how the idea would work using watercolor and sea water. Again with the aim of giving these nudes which were often almost always being chased by a satyr, centaur, or male eye a new more active voice. With both the contemporary surfer girls and the classical figures, I enjoy the way the almost dancing-like figures seem to be taken out of their context with their bodies in a type of ballet friction.
To continue with the classical figure as reimagined surfer girl I decided to do a life-sized figure. After completing the figure and working on the wave component I felt as if it was lacking. To involve my work more into the element of water I created cyanotype images in the ocean at the surfing end of a local beach. I cut these out and added them in collage to my already watercolored classical figure. Visually, I enjoy the contrast of the light and airy watercolors again the deep cyan of the sun exposed paper. The figure is quiet literally dancing on top of the sea in the work.
Although I very much enjoy the process of creating these ocean dyes with the use of cyanotype chemicals I am aware of the amount of other well established artists that use this to create artistic landscapes and would not wish to be borrowing too much of the process from others.
Moving forward with this process I would like to experiment and apply the chemical directly to my canvas and wrap the large canvas around the bow of a smaller boat, reminiscent to the location of the female figure heads on vessels and see how the canvas will be exposed to the elements.
As much as I would like to be done experimenting and have a concrete plan down, moving forward from here I need to hash out and find answers to many of my ideas. I will explore the friction between the female figure and her power struggle with wind and water. Women sailing, dinghy sailing, kiteboarding, windsurfing, and surfing. With each of these subjects I need to make more concrete decisions about what details of the composition to include and how to tie them together to create a cohesive series. With the decision to eliminate the bathing suit with the modern surfing girls I need to make decisions about the nakedness of the classical nudes, clothing on sailors, and lifejackets on windsurfers. What these women wear has meaning and I will only find answers by experimenting with each.