Neo Deco – 10-06-23

Ways of Execution

This oil painting ‘Neo Deco – 10-06-23’ feels like a continuation of last year’s cubist ones, interrupted by two grand pieces. These ones are of course Psyche a& Amor 23-05-23 and Melina Noëlle – 18-04-23. Obviously I had fun creating them but I kind of missed creating these oils within one week or so. It’s the variety in execution I long for, I guess. Sometimes I feel like loosing myself in a complete world I can live in for months. And so I developed this idea of changing between ways of executions. Sometimes striving for capturing the essential very quickly. Another time there is an inner urge to tell the whole story. Basically it’s the variety that keeps me going.

The Second Process

Another reason for such a change is the stock of successful drawings keeps piling up. This time I chose to put my graphite pencil drawing ‘Roundism – 28-10-22 (sold)’ into oil. I like the concept I put down on paper. For the complete story I advice you to click that link. Other people seem to like it too for I sold it quickly as well as prints. Now wait for a minute before you judge me too quickly. It’s not just about exploiting successful drawings. That would imply I would rest on my laurels too much. Even though I also have to make a living from my art there is this artistic challenge as well. Drawing often is called the primary process and painting the second. This doesn’t say the oil automatically will match the drawing’s success.

Cézanne to My Aid

Transfering the drawing’s concept was a good thing. Certainly I cannot do a better job on the cubist styling and so I swiftly was caught in limbo. How to operate from there? Usually I let it rest for a while and see what the next day may bring me. Last Friday I happened to show a student Cézanne’s portrait of Joachim Gasquet. I already wrote about my love for its open structure in my art statement to ‘Roundism – 22-03-18 (sold)’. This time I was inspired by his color scheme. The dark, almost blackish blue and grainy white edges set off against the skin hues quite nicely. So, in the evening I set out to apply the paints and see what happened.

Balancing out Hues

Even though the preliminary result soothed my eyes I spent some days balancing hues. That is, from a quantitative point of view (not the complete color wheel). Mainy greens, oranges and blues and some tads of yellow. Not too much because that one easily grabs a viewer by the throat. I also took care of saturational balances, defining more unsaturated areas than bright spots. The result is the orange accents really pop out. The magenta even looks cool, placed directly next to them. Last but not least, in honor of Cézanne I kept a loose structure, for example in the region of the hand at the right below. Not as loose as his portrait of Joachim but hopefully not looking overprocuded nonetheless.

Oil on linen (60 x 80 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers