I remember when I was in graduate school one of my semester end group crits centered around how I use too much white in paintings. One critic said it was a crutch and the remaining 15 minutes were spent pointing it out. Since then I had a heightened consciousness for my use of white, sometimes just indulging it and other times forcing myself to omit it from my palette completely.
Recently I can not get enough of what you might call the opposite. Blacks and blues that cover. With white I liked its transparency and even just the gesso white of the board, the pristine, light filled quality. But I've been finding the rich darks so seductive in their subtlety. I bought a bunch of different blacks at the suggestion of another painter and it has fed my investigation.
Another thing I find so nice is how it can be dense and deep or flat. I like the way it pulls a viewer to approach at an intimate distance.
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| Stray Boy, 2014, Oil on Panel |
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| Detail of an in progress painting |
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| Midnight Remote, 2015, Oil on Panel |
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