Dennis Hollingsworth

MARS

The god of war seems to be a fitting name for these times. Note that the name comes after the painting is done, it's not as if I was conjuring scenes of battle as I was painting. Although it was a struggle to paint.

The images of this painting in the last post was a bit peaked, so this post is meant to do jpeg justice to the work. The image below is interesting to me in that it looks like I'm shooting it from and extreme oblique angle. But it is straight on, perpendicular.

I've done the lunar landing photo series before. I hope it doesn't get too repetative, but I think a composite of images near and far and near and nearer is the best way to present the paintings in reproduction in photo media.

This painting came very near to a second scrape off. It wasn't until I pulled the red field back over the riot in the center that I found a balance and the set up I needed to punch the creamy flower like forms that organize the tangle of smaller marks.

I had to pull the black across the center to drive the tonality one way and by doing this, I could drive back to the lighter forms in the end. I wonder how VanGogh and the impressionists were able to daub so cleanly across the surface of their canvases. They must have cleaned their brushes everytime they touched the canvas.

Here's the red field pullled back and the punches knitting the left side into the tangle again. I like how the punch sucks and depresses the field, pulling the taut surface into an undertow of paint.