Sunday, February 20, 2011

River from "The Mote in Mother's Eye"

This is one of the pretty much early works of mine, belonging to a larger series of works called "The Mote in Mother's Eye". In contrast to the series "Monsters and Constructions" which included paintings with alien objects that were well-circumscribed, this series has works that depict a surrealistic and abstract view of nature in a more free form.

Still, I always like giving a fake representation even to real concepts like mountains, cliffs and rivers, as shown here. If for example someone notices the sky, he will immediately realize that I used very strange colors that they are absent from realism-paintings that the sky is drawn. Also, it is evident sometimes that colors within the sky change very drastically, without a smooth gradient applied there, giving the impression that the sky is not real but there is a canvas behind the mountain.

Another deliberate misconception applied in this painting is the disorientation of the theoretical light source. If someone notices the small cliffs on both sides of the river, the lighter brown on the left side of the mountain, as well as, the lighter sky colors on the left side of the painting, he/she could easily tell that the sun is probably on the left side of the paintingthrowing light over these objects from a big angle (around 60-70 degrees). However, the beams of light seem to have obtained a totally different direction, as well as being hidden behind smog, as shown in the upper right corner of the sky.

The work is entitled "river" and is the first of this series.