Redefined - Hinge

My latest work is a reexamination of objects that I used in a body of work three years ago. Many of them were picked up at the sight of an old family building which has long fallen into the ground and disappeared. Only rusted metal and rotting boards are left.  The hinge and wallpaper in the piece below reference the separate  male/female worlds of work prevalent in the fifties and sixties when I was growing up. Like the eroding wallpaper and hinge things are changing in that arena. 

Wallpaper with Hinge (2008) 26 x 14 in. Mixed media on board

Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Art Bank Collection

 Redefined - Hinge ( 2011)  16 x 16 in. Mixed media on board

My new work is leaving the realm of male female roles and work behind as I study the object themselves and how they relate to the interior and exterior landscape. This piece has different characteristics than the other two pieces from Redefined I  recently wrote about.  The hinge is not integrated into the background, rather it hovers like some kind of alien ship.  No matter how much I tried to give it an embedded feel it didn't work out.  I stopped trying and listened to the painting.

Redefined again

 Here's more work from my Redefined series which is a small subset of a larger body of work titled Remnants . If you've read previous posts you will know that I am reworking imagery that I felt didn't live up to my initial expectations. I am pleased with my new take on previous work. 

Untitled , (2010)16 x 16in.  mixed media on canvas

 Redefined - Barrel (2011) 16 x 16 in. mixed media on board

What did you notice when you compared my first and second attempt?

Redefined

My life is just a little too exciting these days.  My mother is recovering from knee replacement surgery; we just heralded the arrival of our third  granddaughter; and, I'm packing works for my solo exhibition in Nova Scotia.  All of these events prompted me to think about how our lives are constantly being redefined by our life experiences.  Nothing ever stays the same and sometimes I wish it just would because change is difficult to accommodate when you are busy.

The focus of my newer Remnants paintings that I'm sending to the exhibition explore how time affects our perceptions  of events/objects related to them,  and how the objects themselves are redefined as time passes.  I've showed some of these paintings before but I'm reworking the ideas and compositions in several of them and I think the new attempts are much better than the first ones.  That is probably because I have a better feel for what I'm doing/saying in the work.  So the painting content and compositions are also being redefined!

Untitled  ( 2010) 16 x 16 in. Mixed media ( image transfers, acrylic paint, paper and mediums )

on canvas 

While I loved this work when I created it in 2010, the more I look at it the less successful it appears.  Now I see it as  a little static and contrived. Yes,  I did a great job of combining interior landscapes (wallpapers from old houses) with exterior ones (a family dory like the ones used in my childhood), but I am forcing the idea of landscape. It's difficult to decide if this is about the object (dory) or if is it about the landscape itself. There's also the female/male connections from my growing up.

  Redefined - Dory (2011) 16 x 16 in. Mixed media ( image transfers, acrylic paint, paper and mediums ) on canvas

This is one of the  new paintings included in the exhibition.   It is much more abstracted and collisional than the first one.  I love the parts that are totally abstract and the combination of real objects in decay within a dual environment -a collision of "male and female".  As usual my photography is lacking because it does not capture the layers of information that well.

If you have thoughts on these  two pieces and where I'm headed in my new work,  I'd love to hear them.