Monotony

Beginning today a series of seven works, two of which I might combine, around the theme of “monochrome”.

I woke up a couple weeks ago and realized I had two galleries about to open exhibits themed as “monochrome” at almost exactly the same time, and unless I wanted to submit only noir works I had to get busy. I kinda like it when something like that happens because it forces a creative burst – sure enough, in short order I had produced these seven new works.

“Monochrome”, of course, simply refers to work that uses a single-color pallet or shades of that one color. Black and white or ‘noir’ as I affectionally call it is the most obvious. Grey might be the most realistic shade for reproducing monochromatic images or at least the most recognizable, but any color works as long as it’s used with effect.

Two approaches: one is to bend all colors towards a single shade. The other is to start with an image in which all colors have been removed, then add back the desired shade. This work utilizes the former. Also noteworthy is the use of extrusions – those bands of light across the image. It’s those bands that can give blending options their diversity. In this case, however, it’s the variety of directions from which those bands, well, extrude. I used two different canvases to vary the point at which those extrusions began, then blended them back in. The technique of blending separately filtered canvases together defines my recent work.

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​I want to explain the title of this work, lest an impression is imparted that it reflects upon the “monochrome” theme. Not at all. Many of my best, most dramatic works are noirs. The title is appropriate to the scene; a guy staring forlornly into food shelves, unable to identify anything to which his desires moved, I’d actually circled around this guy while discreetly capturing the image, and he continued to just stand there, staring into a baloney of sameness that, somehow, seems consistent with our Corona-days.