Sebastian St. Beach at Moonlight

”Sebastian St. Beach at Moonlight.”

Oil on unprimed paper. 9 x 12 in.

2023

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I was in Ft Lauderdale during the summer of last year. We stayed less than a block away from the beach and we never felt the need to do anything else but to be by the sea.

We had forgotten to buy more sunscreen that day, so I decided to go for a walk with the purpose of buying SPF at the 24hr convenience store down the street. After accomplishing my goal, I decided to stop by the beach & enjoy the full moon by the lifeguard tower in Sebastian St Beach. I was all alone except for the folks that were diligently monitoring the sea turtle nests.

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Back home, while making the painting. I was listening to an audiobook on the 18th century French art academy. Particular attention was given to Ernest Meissonier (the most famous of painters back then but whom little attention is given to nowadays it seems) and his painstaking ways of setting up compositions. Setting up a scene, dressing people and horses up and enacting these events. A full out war broke out in the backyard of this painter’s mansion from time to time for the sole purpose of picture making.

The jarring contrast of such a way of building a painting and the one I was employing when painting this piece was a refreshing ambivalence and it revealed to me how free I finally was. Free of any anatomical constraints, of compositional notions, and color theory idioms and dogmas. Not out of laziness but out of exploration. By no means do I feel like I’m pushing boundaries here but again, it feels incredibly liberating to allow myself to paint this way.

By this I only want to Illustrate the obvious, all roads lead to Rome, any way of painting is a good way of painting if the work is honest.

Ernest Meissonier still stands undefeated.

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January 12th, 2024 – 3:58PM