Neo Deco – 30-07-23

Time Limited

This oil painting ‘Neo Deco – 30-07-23’ is an elaboration of my graphite pencil drawing ‘Art Deco – 23-08-22’. As artist, my time on earth is limited compared to the deluge of ideas I still want to process. As to this I’d like to paraphrase an art critic (I believe). “Ideas are like rabbits: when you buy one and another one after that, soon you’ll have 10.” This is true. The fact is there is less time to create a painting than the storm I cook up as draftsman.

Almost Perfect

Why this one then? Because I liked the concept. Especially the audacity with which I created the drawing made me confident to test it in oil paint. For example I exaggerated the highlighted planes in order to enforce the overall tonal rhythym. Next to this, the extrapolated planes outside the body divide the negative space in a nice way. Thus I consider the composition perfect in that way I cannot think of a better one. Perfection, of course, is not something you can achieve. Salvador Dali would agree to this.

Color Scheme

I was particularly interested in what color scheme I could employ to the scene. Of late I like using Perylene Black of Winsor & Newton. At first glance it looks just like the blackest of blacks you ever saw. Mixed with white it delivers you a perfect greenish undercoat. In the past I used green earth or green umber as well. These ones also can appear a bit dim, not to mention the grainy and transparent consistency. Perylene offers me the perfect consistency and for skin hues placed on top create a perfect appearance. So there it was, a greenish imprimatura. Soon visions of Pozzuoli earth and Pompeian red pigments appeared in my mind. These were the first, almost complementary, colors I threw in. Surely the painting wasn’t intended to turn into just another explosion of saturated colors.

Final Stage

Not unsatisfied with the preliminary result I let it sink in. Soon hereafter I saw it could use a bit more vibrancy though. Hence I extended the scheme with the luminist duet purple and yellow. It seemed the perfect colorite matching the dance. In the final stage I envisioned Lord Shiva performing the Tandava. Unfortunately for me that’s a male and I depicted a she. Otherwise the painting would have been named accordingly. The planetary structure however refers to that cosmic dance. It came on a whim really in the very end. I think the roundness offers a nice contrast to the dynamic dance, however straightly rendered. Almost a bit of a jest. Then again, nothing more boring than to express roundish movements with round forms, don’t you think?

Oil on linen (60 x 80 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers