Saturday, February 2, 2008

#17 from 100 pictures book - Untitled



Untitled, 2001
Oil on wood
48" x 24

This is an unusual piece for me in that there were no sketches and no similar pictures that came after it. So unusual that I never gave it a proper title. This picture was painted in the beginning part of the year because after 9/11, I started my Imaginary Botanicals series and abandoned all other works.

The central figure comes from an old rubber stamp that I own. It is a doctor's stamp that they used before they had copy machines. The doctor would use this stamp to help diagram a patients symptoms. What I really enjoy about it is that the left half shows the front of the image and the right half the back. I thought it was great that it implied that the figure has two sides even though it is a simple line drawing. I also liked it because I thought it also could imply that the figure was spinning. I believe that is what made me add the other figures. Those are from Matisse's famous Dance, 1910. The combination of the two just seemed to fit.