Thinkin of a move....

...back to realism...or at least using more aspects of it in my work. Maybe it's the fact that I photograph areas of Milwaukee fairly regularly, but something has driven me to notice some of the beauty in the everyday objects around me more than ever before. It may be a rusted door,  a paint chipped wall or an interesting mixture of different concretes in a part of the road, but the abstracted areas of color in every-day milwaukee has seemed to stick in my head and, while fairly abstract in themselves, the objects are the thing that makes the colors seem more interesting.

So maybe it's not quite realism, it's more of abstracted reality, based on the colors of objects...but it is color combinations that stick with me because of their complete lack of meaning, their complete lack of concept and the total reality of the object itself.

If im creating a composition that copies a very nearly "naturally" made color scheme (natural through weathering, time, and exposure to elements) I am creating something REAL, based in reality, and free from the conceptual ideas that litter what comes from the artists mind. It simply can't have all these deep meanings if I didnt  make it from scratch. It may have emotional qualities, but that is based on our reactions to color and decay, not from the concept behind the composition. I suppose this stems back to my overall dislike of the "concept" and that I find it difficult to get around while painting abstractly. It is almost required to have a meaning other than emotion. By moving to compositions created by nature, I can hopefully get past the conceptual bullshit and people may be able to see that there is art that is there for beauty, emotion, and the general connection to other people...anyway, this is one picture I am talking about. Forget the political commentary and just look at the "natural" beauty around you.