March 20, 2010

Tornado Series: en plein air

serpents_43.jpg

"serpent's_#43" - acrylic on magazine page, 10.5" x 8"

“Serpent's_#43” represents an inflection point in the continuing Tornado Series. Up to now I’ve been intentionally working without visual referent – operating exclusively from memory or preconception.

It seemed a worthy exercise – an irreproducible luxury – to scan the mental database and see what my personal encoded tornado icon looks like – at least to date.

With this painting, though, I’ve taken to painting from external observation: The web is replete with powerful, experiential video of tornadoes. I think of working in accompaniment to these videos as mediated en plein air painting.

Posted by mark at March 20, 2010 01:58 AM