13 Pictures

This project has been finishing up now for about the last 3 or 4 months. It looks like its pretty much complete at this point. My next painting will be a commission piece for a friend of mine of the Pulaski Skyway, which is only a remotely related subject.

Five Mile From Times Square began about 4 years ago, on a cold January day. I dragged my very dear friend Willie Joe to the foot of Snake Hill. He stayed below while I climbed to the top and shot several rolls of film (film...!). I eventually wrote a grant proposal (PDF link here) which got exactly zero interest, and I was forced to slog ahead on the project without any funding or support, but hey, painting is what I do.

The only difference is that I completed 13 paintings (my goal was 10-12) in 4 years instead of 1, and I wasn't able to get any financial backing to use as leverage towards getting a gallery show. But I sold about half of what I produced, so I guess that doesn't matter either.

So now I move on, look for a different subject. What I'm left with is a legacy of 13 images, many of which belong to other people now. No size, no titles, no dates, no info, just pictures, 13 pictures.








The Great Escape (official) and The Cooler King

Matthew Green, The Great Escape, 30" x 64", oil on canvas, 2013

In my last post I wrote about all kinds of meanings and parallels regarding my latest work, The Great Escape (above).

There was one reference I forgot to mention: the painting's namesake.

I've seen the movie The Great Escape only once, when I was about 11 years old, and I loved it. If you don't know the movie, it involves Allied prisoners of war in Germany during World War Two, and their plan to orchestrate a mass escape from one of the highest security prisoner of war camps on the enemy side.

The most memorable scene for me is the most climatic, where Captain Virgil Hilts, played by Steve McQueen, almost at the Swiss border, jumps the motorcycle he's riding, becomes entangled in barbed wire, and is re-captured by the Germans and returned to camp. Hilts is able to avoid execution as a spy by showing the Germans his Captain's insignia sewn to the inside of his shirt.

Hilts is dubbed "The Cooler King" by his fellow prisoners, because of his propensity to try and break out of prison. This behavior generally lands him in the cooler, or solitary confinement, which is one of the harshest punishments imposed by the Germans for the most disobedient prisoners.

Most of us are Virgil Hilts. We infuriate our captors with frequent escape attempts, only to be alienated and locked in the cooler once our attempts to free ourselves are discovered. We have no choice. Our desire to live free drives us toward the goal of liberating ourselves from the limits of civilization, expectations, peer pressure, pre-determined concepts of success, and anything else that forces us to suppress our desires and limit our effort to self-actualize.

Realizing our constraints, we dream and strive to separate ourselves from the pack and grow as individuals, try to do something that we want, to live like we want to live, to exist outside of rules imposed on us. We conspire to build our own tunnels, plan our escape routes. Most of these attempts are discovered by the guards.

Our tunnels, like those built by the prisoners in the film, never reach the tree line beyond the prison walls, and only a very select few successfully vault over the barbed wire border fence on our stolen motorcycles. Most who even get that far are usually captured by society and returned to prison to be our own versions of The Cooler King.

We can fight, conspire, dream, connive, or fly below the radar all we want, but the tentacles are almost always there to bring us back in. Once captured, we gladly flash our insignia that shows that we are still willing to comply in order to not be called out as an outsider.

So another painting, this time named after a movie about a quest for freedom, is my latest motorcycle. Will I clear the barbed wire at the border this time?

Excerpt from the film, The Great Escape

The "motorcycle scene"








The Great Escape

Formerly called "Untitled Painting," it now has a title: The Great Escape. It's oil on canvas, measures 30" high by 64" wide, and was completed in the year 2013. Its my latest and one of my most successful, which is one of the reasons behind its title.

It has significance as an escape in its reality as a landmark piece, a career milestone, an artistic turning point, a personal affirmation, and metaphorically in its subject on multiple levels.

I promised to document the conclusion of each sitting, which you can see in the series of photos below. What I did not do as promised was to blog each night's photo. I was just too busy, too tired, too preoccupied, too lazy.

It was completed in 13 sessions, considerably fewer than some I have documented in the past. I recall Xanadu, which was recorded in the same way, but took 44 sessions to complete. That was the old way. Things have a new sense of purpose now, and my priorities have changed. Hence the title.

I've been able to bridge a gap so to speak, or to parallel the subject of the painting, a miry, fecund swamp of mediocrity and meaninglessness. This painting was completed in a period of transcendence.

My previous 3 posts are sittings number 1, 2, and 3. Below are 4 through 13...

What's next?








Untitled Painting part 3

Once again, unfortunately, I don't feel like writing. I've written some interesting things in the past, so feel free to browse and read some of my older posts. Honestly, I just can't tonight. I'm tired. And I keep making typos. And I have this tiny little split on the tip of my right index finger that is making typing kinda painful. So instead of reading, if you're shy and/or lazy and don't feel like perusing my older posts, here's tonight's latest version of my yet-to-be-titled work in progress to stare at...








Untitled Painting part 2

About an hour of work. Hopefully part 3 tomorrow. I wish I had more to say, but...








New Painting, No Title Part 1

I had this idea of ending this project about a month ago, but It doesn't look like that idea is taking hold very well. Circumstances being what they are, I've decided to press on with the material I've collected over the last 4 years and keep doing paintings from The Meadowlands.

I needed to start a new painting for an upcoming studio tour, and I knew I wasn't going to have any opportunities to find a new subject to study and go out and shoot photos. I delved into some photos from the last hour or so of a shoot I did in 2010, and found some pretty intriguing ones.

I had a swatch of canvas that was enough for a painting that would measure 30" high by 64" wide, a rather unusual proportion, and certainly a new one for me. Finding a good image that would crop nicely to that size was a bit of a challenge, but I found one that captured a nice sublime moment. The geometry of the image was what really grabbed me, as there's a beautiful array of large shapes in the picture that divides the space nicely. There's also a big expanse of sky which creates a feeling of freshness and openness in the piece.

I snapped a photo after doing a quick sketch on the canvas, and I think I'll try and capture each sitting like I've done in the past. I don't feel like painting tonight. I can list a million reasons why I won't start tonight, but it will only sound like a whole bunch of half-assed excuses, so I won't get into specifics.

Here's the sketch, followed by the photo. I have no title yet. I'm probably not going to attempt think of one tonight either. That should show you how lazy I am tonight...








My Golden Hour

Photographers often refer to the early mornings or evenings as "The Golden Hour," the time of day when the light is soft and warm, shadows are long and dramatic, and it all adds a special quality to photographs with rich colors and soft contrasts.

Back in January 2010 I was on one of my early photo shoots for this project, and as I neared the end of the day I stopped off at Laurel Hill Park to use up the rest of my film, after a pathetic trek 50 yard trek through the foxtails which felt like miles. What followed were some pretty stellar images, none of which had been used until recently, when my wife and I were looking for new images to hang around the house in advance of an upcoming studio tour.

I cropped some of the best ones to squares to fit some frames she had, and I found some gems, which had been previously swept under the rug until today. I may even make one of them into a new painting, although I'll have to find something that will work in a 30" x 64" format.

Scroll down and see if you agree that these Golden Hour photos are what I think they are...