Thursday, January 7, 2010

DEATH PAINTING: preparatory study

SUZANNE DYING 9d*** graphite on paper 18 x 16 1/2 inches (irregular)

So, in honor of my commitment to make this blog more of a view into my studio practice and personal process–foolish to try to separate in an artist, I believe–I am uploading a study, the second one for what may be my next DEATH PAINTING. The inspiration and reference for this image was probably shot on December 20th, 2008, eleven days before her death from metastatic hemangiopericytoma.

I've been asked why I'm making these paintings. Every time I work on one I must pay a huge emotional toll. Nor do I expect there to be a clamoring to decorate the living room with this work. I have to make them. It's certainly a memorial; it is also part of my process of integrating and releasing this horrific and seemingly premature death. Suzanne was 51.

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