Paintings

“Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos… “

| ssemchuk

January 4, 2016

“Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos, designed to reduce the impact of randomness on experience. They are adaptive responses, just as feathers are for birds and fur is for mammals. Cultures prescribe norms, evolve goals, build beliefs that help us tackle the challenges of existence. In so doing they must rule out many alternative goals and beliefs, and thereby limit possibilities; but this channeling of attention to a limited set of goals and means is what allows effortless action with self-created boundaries.

It is in this respect that games provide a compelling analogy to cultures. Both consist of more or less arbitrary goals and rules that allow people to become involved in a process and act with a minimum of doubts and distractions. The difference is mainly one of scale. Cultures are all-embracing: they specify how a person should be born, how she should grow up, marry, have children, and die. Games fill out the interludes of the cultural script. They enhance action and  concentration during “free time,” when cultural instructions offer little guidance, and a person’s attention threatens to wander into the uncharted realms of chaos.”

– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience 

I’ve just started this large canvas and am looking forward to seeing how it evolves. The photo has a lot of reflection on the lower left. Hopefully next time I’ll find a better angle to photograph it from.
Still Life Red WIP
Still Life Red WIP, Jan 3, 2016, Oil on Canvas, 48″ X 36″

“There is no must in art because art is free.” – Wassily Kandinsky

| ssemchuk

December 6, 2015

Lone Lemon
Lone Lemon, Dec 5, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 10″ X 10″

Another experiment. I find if I call it an experiment when I set out, I feel less attached to the results. If it isn’t successful, it’s not a failed piece of art, but a learning experience. I’ve been feeling a little caged-in lately and this new experimental approach is my response to that. I was trying to paint quickly here, using more colour in my shadows and more broad areas of colour with less blending and less ‘preciousness’. I’m not thrilled with the lemon, but that’s ok. It is what it is and I will go on from here…

 

“authorship is a dubious concept” – Victor Pelevin

| ssemchuk

“I had never understood my own poetry particularly well, and had long suspected that authorship is a dubious concept, and all that is required from a person who takes a pen in hand is to line up the various keyholes scattered about his soul so that a ray of sunlight can shine through on to the paper set out in front of him.” 

from Buddha’s Little Finger, by Victor Pelevin

Bellis III WIP
Bellis III WIP

I worked a little more on this painting that I have been very dissatisfied with. It’s still not finished, but I’m a little happier with the direction it’s going in. I’ve included a before as well to see the difference. She still needs work….

Bellis III WIP
Bellis III WIP, Jan 25, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 28″ X 28″

“To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.” – Akira Kurosawa

| ssemchuk

Nov 22, 2015

Another painting of white fabric. I know, how edgy and daring can I get? I had meant to do a close up of my subject matter from the last two images, but I couldn’t find my original photo, so I started fresh. I chose an image with more contrast this time.  And I painted on panel instead of canvas. I prefer stretched canvas, but didn’t mind the hard texture of the panel on this one. I’m not thrilled with the visibility of the brush strokes of the gesso layer – next time I will definitely sand my panel smooth before I start. Overall, I’m not unhappy with this image. I like it better today than I did last night when I called it finished.

Drapery 3
Drapery 3