More Changes, First Biology Series

I learned a lot from the last series, but I was worn out with the dark reds, the gold powder was toxic, and the incised lines stretched my arm and shoulder muscles to their limits. I also ended up needing to finish a considerable number of paintings in a relatively small period of time, and as slowly as I paint, I knew they couldn't be large ones. I wrestled with ideas, talked to a few people, and came up with a vague direction involving clothing imagery.

Ultimately, I think I ended up falling back on the advice often given to writers, to "write what you know." I decided to paint what I know best—the effect that my broken biology has upon the way that I see myself. Identity's been a thread through a lot of my work, even going all the way back to 2005, and my early work used clothing as metaphor, so the ideas seemed to be a good fit.

I'm not sure the paintings in the next two series have to only be seen as relating to illness or fractured health, though. I believe they might be equally effective if they're thought of as conveying the way women sometimes feel...because of the media, men in their lives, or other women...about aging.

 Biology's a Bitch II, extruded acrylic medium and water-soluble oil on canvas, 24x18 inches 

So I traded one hand-scrunching technique for another. These paintings are made by putting a thick, fairly even layer of coarse modeling paste over canvas or panel and letting it dry. Next, I transfer my drawing onto the surface, using pastels. I then extrude (this is the hand-scrunching part) heavy acrylic gel medium (or a paint and heavy medium mix) onto the drawn lines. Once the extruded layer is dry, I wash over the remaining pastel with an acrylic wash mixture. If I need more color, I add small amounts of acrylic wash until I get what I want. For this painting, I painted the capillaries, as well. After the acrylic dried, I painted the dress form with water-soluble oils and then scrubbed the rest of the painting with a wash of water-soluble oils and water.  

I'm happy with the relief effect I'm getting using the extruded acrylic. I also really like the surface texture I get with the coarse modeling paste.

I'm using capillary imagery and greys and muted blues because they're related to exhaustion and fatigue. The red area implies that there's only a tiny healthy component remaining. Other colors are just used for contrast.

 Biology's a Bitch I, extruded acrylic medium and water-soluble oil on canvas, 24x18 inches

This painting was generally created in the same way as the previous one. Conceptually, I'm conveying the effect of pain, using a stylized pain neuron and the color red.  

More white oil paint was used on top of the acrylic background than in the previous one. 

Biology’s a Bitch III, extruded acrylic medium and water-soluble oils on canvas, 24x18 inches

This one was created in the same way as the others in the series. Purple was used because it's related to wisdom and intelligence. Brain neuron imagery was used because brain neurons control cognitive functions. 

Overall, I'm not unhappy with these, but the next small series loses the painted dresses, because in critique, the biological imagery came across as more important and/or more interesting, than the painted dress forms.