Wisteria, Butterflies & A Wedding.

“Wisteria, Butterflies & A Wedding.”

Oil on unprimed paper.

9x12.

2024.

Wisteria is another observation from my trip to Mexico last fall.

This one depicts the Wisteria that was hung all around the space where the wedding and ensuing celebrations took place.

It’s been a joy to explore and create worlds and lore that I haven’t felt brave enough to do before, but I’ve always have searched for the place that observational painting and the still life has in my repertoire. As I have often stated recently, I now find myself in a path with bifurcating ways.

It’s incredibly easy to default to the literal representation of things in a still life, it’s like quicksand if you’re a figurative painter. Information is decoded and replicated exactly on a substrate and the learning experience of the painting process is potentially wasted without even knowing it.

Free reign has never been given to personal interpretation in my work. Up until now.

This painting, alongside Sebastian’s Rings I & II were forays into that idea. However subtle in their nature. An idea that so many painters have explored and exploited to beautiful results. The reference is just that, a reference.

The painting process, however, is a world of its own.

I added the white butterflies after being followed by one on a neighborhood walk not long ago. I’m not sure what they represent. Maybe, like in “Dreams”, a soft introduction to the animism in storytelling that I’ve always fantasized about portraying. Maybe these two represent the recently wed.

Who knows.