Images from the summer

So I have got back some film that I shot this summer but I did not have a chance to scan the negatives, so basically there is no image to this visual blog...


Anyhoo,


I was shooting water lillies up north, they are black and white shot with the holga, of course you cannot look at these little water thingies without thinking of Monet and his work. Back in 1992 I went to where he lived and worked, Giverny, it was just like walking into the paintings. I should find some of those pics and scan them, especially as I am not in them so you cannot see how tragically long my hair was at the time.

I digress, here is a link of those paintings that are in the oval galleries of the Orangerie, in the tuileries garden in Paris a short hop from the Louvre, if I remember correctly, which I may not. I looked up the name, the painting series is Les Nymphéas, 4 paintings in this oval gallery so you are surrounded by nature paintings, it is way better than it sounds.

The Link is a VR tour ( a la late 1990s!) of the 2 rooms, 8 paintings, be careful! It moves really fast with the panning you can lose your mind rapidos.

Actually at the gallery, you will also find Chaim Soutine painting(s?) there is the one of the altar boy

He also did this famous painting of a flayed beef, a homage to Rembrandt's Flayed Ox

this is Soutine's

This is Rembrandt's painting

And this is Francis Bacon

I think the text in the Bacon picture that was added by my cursor going over the image when I took the screen shot, saying "francis-bacon-painting" kinda adds something.

I love the thick rich painting style of Soutine, you can see how he has elaborated on the brush strokes of Rembrandt and perhaps has visually indicated where painting like this can go under the brush of Frank Auerbach, whose oil paintings famously sag from being wet for decades.

Here is a little video about him

Happy to be over the couch

Years ago, my friend from OCAD Margaret had this idea to sell artwork with the couch in mind, I think I was joking and added that you should sell art with 2 cans of paint and a whack of colour swatches, flying in the face of artistic doctrine, but hey it was 1993 and we were wild then, everyone hanging out at the Beverly tavern on Queen St West, watching Steve Anthony come in between scenes on Much Music to have a number of drinks and head back to being live on air.

Mayhaps the memory is all cloudy, Margaret will probably say it was all her idea, or deny the whole thing, either way she is probably right.

Anyways, I got this sent to me today. Yep, this is now in the home of an architect in the city and I feel pretty good about that. This is one of the pieces that went out of the studio in the past week that made me get into the work space and since I have been conspiring ways to get back there to do some work ( and subsequently assaulted by the cigar smell from the guy below, the renos to the unit south of me and the guy in the back laneway who is insanely dedicated to playing dreadful drumming all day long, so very dedicated...)

SO, it is pretty awesome to see something you had a hand in hanging in someone's living environment, it is a hell of a compliment.

This picture was shot on a sunny day in Paris back in 2006. I was only there for 48 hours, it was a tough trip for me, I went to pay my respect to relatives who were recently deceased and to see other relatives who I knew would be gone before I had a chance to come back. It was the first time I stayed in a hotel (what you would expect) in Paris as I always stayed with relatives, now there were no more of them.

Back in Toronto looking at these multiple exposed sculptures made me think of The Three Graces, this was is just on the lawns around the Louvre. It also reminds me of a B&W photo I've seen on a postcard looking up past 3 sculptures of women to see 3 helicopters, I combed the inter web for awhile but no luck. I really wanted that to be here on this post as I noticed in the bottom of this pic there looks to be a model of a Huey or some other transport copter.