Don’t know what else to call my paintings - but I like the one I did today.

Had a lot of thoughts while painting - and I allowed myself to “go” a little.   Since I’m doing the work for myself, I’m the only one that needs to like it.   I do struggle with the idea that I’m not doing something that looks more “modern” but I find this is what’s comfortable for me to do right now - paint this way - so that’s what I’m doing.

Finding the work I’m doing over the last two months has a “glow” or energy about it where it’s difficult to actually focus on what the painting is of - sorta like I’m going after a halo type effect that is interpenetrating the objects I’m painting.

And that’s fine - who says a painting, or any work of art, is really about being representational?

Anyway, I’m writing this while still in my studio - now it’s time to have dinner.  I’m glad I did something today that I actually like - my last two sessions here - I felt sorta “empty” and it wasn’t really happening for me.  Today it was different - a rainy day too - quiet - good for painting too.

I went to the Metropolitan Museum Friday afternoon and spent some time on the museum rooftop seeing Frank Stella on the Roof exhibition, also quickly revisiting Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings: The Clark Brothers Collect , mostly for the Van Gogh painting The Night Café and then as I was about to leave to meetup with a friend at a downtown party, I discovered Neo Rauch at the Met: para  and spent a  half an hour transfixed by a German artist who I knew nothing about till yesterday.

Warten auf die Barbaren (Waiting for the Barbarians), 2

I think of Balthus immediately - but there’s more - something old and yet, something new here as well - and a masterpiece of painting.

All the paintings in the show (I believe there are 10) were painted in 2007.  In the case of Warten auf die Barbaren (Waiting for the Barbarians),0llllI was reminded of the Roman Villa paintings from antiquity, some that are actually housed at the Metropolitan Museum’s Greek and Roman wing. 

I also noticed Paranoia   a long painting that does everything I’ve tried to do with color - better than I’ve been able to - yes, I admire what Neo Rauch has done - and the mastery of his paintings.

Looking at the left part of the picture, creating space with color transitions - it’s a masterpiece.   I’ll come back at least a couple of times to see the paints of Neo Rauch here at the Metropolitan, at least, till Mid October, when they go back to Germany, where Neo Rauch lives.   Too bad he’s not visiting NYC sometime, I’d like to interview him for ArtNewYorkCity.com.

And to finish up my trip to the Metropolitan yesterday, here’s a YouTube Video that has many of my thoughts about what I saw yesterday - about Art being Compressed Time - of the gravity of what I was seeing (also the Frank Stella sculptures were great - though I could not really be sure what I was feeling when I looked at them) and a couple of snippets of Neo Rauch - as much as I was allowed to capture on my video camera - it’s getting very hard to take videos in museums lately - the guards make it almost impossible to take pictures of anything.

Enjoy the movie.

I went to the following openings tonight

“Chelsea Summer Dreaming” at Robert Steele Gallery W 25 street, 511

“Free Rein” Montclair State University Summer Show at Amos Eno Gallery
W 25 street, 530, floor 6, 6-9pm

There were a couple of others I decided to pass on - and while I saw some things that I liked at the first gallery, I walked in and out within a minute from “Free Rein”.

Need to feel I can relate to the work to even want to look at it - if it doesn’t get my interest - I don’t try to find something to like and then force myself to look at the work, as some do, I just move on. 

Either it moves me or it doesn’t.