Castles in Spain - Some Images and Comments

Here you'll find some of my latest work, all from my recent exhibtion, "Castles in Spain", at Azucarera Gallery, 145th st, NYC.

The posts below this one contain all of the oil paintings, a selection of the drawings and pen-and-ink collages, as well as Judith and the large sketches board.

Please feel free to leave any comments, suggestions, questions etc.

Vulture's Nest

Vulture's Nest
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

This painting gets its name from the family of vultures that live here, just behind the viewer's head. They have a knack for finding the best places.
On the horizon is Morocco, around the corner the Strait of Gibraltar.

Trasierra

Trasierra
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

Blue Road

Blue Road
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

Morning Hill

Morning Hill
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

Zipper Road

Zipper Road
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

This was going to be a straightforward landscape, but the hatching technique that came from my drawing, which 'came loose' at lower right, suggested an unthreading, or dissolving, of the landscape.

Judith

Judith
2008
Pen and Ink Collage
12" x 17"

- from Electric Pear's Synesthesia 08-09

Aya Monet was the first in this game of artistic telephone, and her performance set the tone for this drawing/collage. It's about the violent beauty of female power.

Judith Wall - from Castles in Spain

The sketches for the Judith piece form the backdrop in "Castles in Spain" and offer clues to its genesis.

Green Volcano

Green Volcano
2008-9
Pen and Ink on Paper
14" x 9"

Another oversized head in a landscape, this time placed in the unstable environment of a volcano. The two entities have been scalped, or tonsured, by an unknown force, and by tectonic plates, respectively.
But what is green, and what is the volcano?

Moon Head

Moon Head
2008-9
Pencil and Gouache on Paper
13" x 16"

This image is based on the Moon Tarot card.
"The card represents... life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit. [The light of the moon] illuminates our animal nature... the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast. It strives to attain manifestation, crawling from the abyss of water to the land, but as a rule it sinks back whence it came..."
(Waite, A.E., The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

Nelson

Nelson
Oil on Board
2008-9
12" x 16"

"Nelson" (the name insinuated itself...)
Strange, androgynous creature in a Sierra de Guadarrama landscape outside Madrid. Her breasts indicate that she is female, although they have withered, along with the rest of her feminine attributes. The only thing that remains is her long, luxurious hair, which gushes into the lower left corner like a flooding river. It flows from the mountain of her pulsing, glowing and dripping brain, which competes for supremacy with the mountains behind her.