Vague Actualization is a 36 × 80 inch oil painting on wood panel. It’s inspired by trips to the Atlantic coast and one of my travel goals, the Azores. I did a great job of staying loose. I had a bit of a challenge because it’s so large, and I couldn’t step back far enough in my studio to keep track of everything as I was going. I was working in a four foot wide galley situation in New York, so while the light in my studio was pretty sweet, there wasn’t much space to dance around. Result, there’s a bit of a myopic distortion in the painting, but I don’t mind it at all. The distortion conveys the enormity of the ocean and the impossibility of taking it all in at once.
I named this painting “Vague Actualization” I had been looking at some Gustave Courbet paintings and one of his seascapes was titled Le Vague, which I assume is french for wave. I am a real etymology geek, and it’s fascinating to me that waves and vagueness are somehow connected in the primordial linguistic ooze. I looked it up and for the ancient french, vague meant "empty, vacant; wild, uncultivated; wandering”. C’est quelque chose!
Vague Actualization is a 36 × 80 inch oil painting on wood panel. It’s inspired by trips to the Atlantic coast and one of my travel goals, the Azores. I did a great job of staying loose. I had a bit of a challenge because it’s so large, and I couldn’t step back far enough in my studio to keep track of everything as I was going. I was working in a four foot wide galley situation in New York, so while the light in my studio was pretty sweet, there wasn’t much space to dance around. Result, there’s a bit of a myopic distortion in the painting, but I don’t mind it at all. The distortion conveys the enormity of the ocean and the impossibility of taking it all in at once.
I named this painting “Vague Actualization” I had been looking at some Gustave Courbet paintings and one of his seascapes was titled Le Vague, which I assume is french for wave. I am a real etymology geek, and it’s fascinating to me that waves and vagueness are somehow connected in the primordial linguistic ooze. I looked it up and for the ancient french, vague meant "empty, vacant; wild, uncultivated; wandering”. C’est quelque chose!
https://youtu.be/voLa0hjFLQc
