Tableaux Transformations: Oil Paintings & Objets d'Art

From April 18 to May 1 I had a solo exhibition: Tableaux Transformations at the New Century Artists Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. The exhibit consisted of twelve oil paintings, one resin box with painted branches and leaves, and various objets d'art. Below are photographs of each of the four walls in the gallery with a listing of the paintings and objects depicted. All of the artwork will be available for viewing on my website: judyclifford.com by the beginning of May. If the artwork is featured in an earlier blog post it will be noted in parentheses next to the title.

Wall A

The artwork on this wall includes:

Calla Lilies: Dried flowers in resin displayed on a 42" pedestal fronted with fusion glass

Calla Lilies: Oil painting on panel, 37" x 23"

Dark Mannequin: Oil painting on panel, 37" x 23"

Dark Mannequin: Plaster sculpture with oil paint, necklace and fusion glass, displayed

on a 42" pedestal fronted with matching fusion glass

Wall B

The artwork on this wall includes:

Blue Perfume Collection: Oil painting on panel, 31" x 24"

Perfume Collection (Three Bottles): glass bottles with fusion glass and mosaic

displayed on small wooden table

Red Perfume Collection: Oil painting on panel, 24" x 18"

Nasturtium 1: Oil painting on panel, 19" square

Nasturtium 2: Oil painting on panel, 19" square ( Sept. 13, 2009)

Small Mosaic Table with Bouquet: Mosaic and resin on wood

with interior lined with fabric and oil painting under lid

Cat and Mouse: Oil painting on canvas, 37" x 23" (Oct. 3, 2009)

Wall C

The artwork on this wall includes:

Riad: Oil painting, 37" x 23" (April 25, 2010)

Slippers on a Line...: Oil painting on canvas with mosaic frame, 23.5" x 23.5"

Moroccan Slipper in Shadowbox: Slipper with fusion glass, 12" x 8"

Berber Doll in Shadowbox: Doll from Morocco, 8" x 6" (April 25, 2010)

Moroccan Pots: Oil painting on panel, 37" x 23"

Wall D

The artwork on this wall includes:

Branches Duo 1: Oil painting on panel, 37" x 23"

Branches in Resin Box: Natural branches and leaves

with oil paint and resin, 37" x 23"

Branches Duo 2: Oil painting on panel, 37" x 23"

Winter 2009

Tile Pattern from Mosque of Hasan II

While traveling in Morocco you are surrounded by layers of decorative art. It covers the architecture, clothing and literally everything that is manmade. Unlike western art, there is no figurative antecedent to Arabic tradition, it all comes from geometric design and stands in contrast to the stark mountains and deserts that dominate the Moroccan landscape.

Our exploration of Morocco began with the Mosque of Hasan II just outside Casablanca. Statistically, it confounds the mind! It is the largest religious structure in the world after the mosque in Mecca. More than half of it lies over the sea, the prayer hall can accommodate 25,000 worshipers and it took 35,000 craftsmen working around the clock to complete it in 1993. Its minaret is the tallest religious structure in the world and the laser beam it emits reaches 30 km in the direction of Mecca. In person, its ethereal beauty made it one of the highlights of our trip.

In Rabat, north of Casablanca, we explored the Mausoleum of Mohammed V followed by tea in the Oudaya Kasbah, an enclave for artists on a nearby ocean bluff that dazzled our eyes.

Turning east on the road to Fes, we visited Meknes where Daliesque fragments of 17th century monuments stood in burnt sienna counterpoint to the turquoise sea beyond. In the hush of late afternoon we arrived at the ruins of Volubilis, which had been the most southerly outpost of the Roman Empire. We walked along roads rutted by chariot wheels and saw the remains of oil presses, bakeries, aqueducts and patrician homes with their pictorial mosaic floors still intact.

Cactus Garden, Fes Medina, oil painting on panel

In early evening we reached Fes, the cultural heart of Morocco. We were delighted by the view our hotel offered of the medina below and the multiple minarets of the mosques where the call to evening prayers was just beginning. The hotel itself has a long history as it was a palace in the 19th century for the Grand Vizier to the Sultan of Morocco. The old wing, built in the Moorish style, has exquisite facades and rooms full of intricate mosaics while the new wing houses a pool and spa.

The Fes el Bali (Old Fes) is the name given to the maze of the souks (markets) in the medina. With its 9,000 narrow lanes we plunged in and trusted our guide to make sure we found our way out. We saw everything from brightly colored spices, butchered meats, pastel colored nougat candy and pyramids of glistening fruit to multicolored slippers, reels of metallic thread and rugs, rugs, rugs.

Riad Courtyard, oil painting on panel, 37" x 23"

Traveling inland, we ate lunch in Rissani, on the edge of the desert. Our stop in this small Berber town coincided with the visit of King Mohammed VI. The local population hung banners welcoming their beloved young monarch and, just before noontime, a barrage of helicopters overhead heralded his arrival. We stood along the route like excited children and waved and shouted as he was chauffeured past us on his way to prayers. Later, returning along the same route, he waved back to us from the driver’s seat of a black 4x4 looking like a teenager with the white sleeve of his jellaba billowing behind his outstretched hand.

Hotel Courtyard, watercolor on paper, 8" x 6"

Finally we headed out into the desert in our own 4x4 driven at breakneck speed by a handsome young Berber in native attire. With a rooster tail of sand arcing out behind us and Moroccan music playing at a suitably deafening volume we were transported to the world of the Erg Chebbi Dunes. Camels were ready for us when we arrived at our camp and we climbed on and rode out across the Sahara toward the sunset. Later, we gathered around a campfire, listened to native musicians, congratulated ourselves on our riding ability and partook in a feast served in a luxurious tent, similar to those in which we would sleep later.

Riding Camels in the Sahara (author in brown)

The next day, after a drive through the Atlas Mountains, we stayed in Quarzazate, The Moroccan Hollywood. The movies “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Gladiator“ had been filmed nearby.

Berber Doll from Erg Chebbi Dunes

Our final stop, Marrakech, was a surprisingly lush city. Here we explored its souk, larger and more “organized” than the one in Fes. Every night in Place Jemaa al-Fna, a huge square outside the labyrinthian medina, there was a gathering of food vendors, snake charmers, fire eaters, mime artists and musicians who partied until the early morning call to prayers (4 am). Even now, two months after our return, the most indelible memory of Morocco is this haunting call to prayers. Happy New Year to All!

An Unconventional Holiday Tree

Holiday Branch with Lights and Poinsettias (interior)

Natural Branch with Fusion Glass and Resin, 44" x 83"

'Tis the Holiday Season and I have been side-tracked from getting back to the studio and working on a series of paintings based on my Morocco Holiday! I thought that you might enjoy these images of "Branch," a sculpture that I did last summer from an actual tree branch (please see the August 28 "Winter 2009" post). Now I present "Branch" brought inside and dressed up with lights to add some drama to my living room during these festive times.

Branch (exterior)

Just to refresh your memory here is "Branch" again as it looked last spring in the garden. I think that it made the transition quite effortlessly, don't you?

Back From Morocco

Sketching at the Sofitel Marrakech

Watercolor on paper, 11" x 8.5"

This was one of my last memories of Morocco. It was the afternoon before we were to fly back home and I spent it taking some "free time" around the pool at our hotel. We had been on a whirlwind tour with no time for me to do any sketching, so I wanted to get one en plein air piece of art in at the last minute. I find that this is a way for me to distill the mass of new information by focusing on a scene and trying to make it distinctive of the foreign land I have been in for two weeks. The lanterns hanging from the trees as well as the white-washed walls and lush vegetation are distinctive of Marrakech in particular.

Shoulder Drawing with Overlay from Michelangelo's Notebook

Pastel and conte crayon on board, 17" x 14"

Now I am in the studio and I have projects that need to be completed before I can start on my Morocco Newsletter. Six weeks before going on vacation I had surgery on my left hand (luckily I am right-handed). My surgeon, Dr. Louis Catalano, has "worked" with me before as he repaired my torn rotator cuff in 2006. I think of our relationship as a collaboration as he fixes my broken body parts and I process the experience into artwork. He embraces my desire to make a visual record by sharing information and images that intrigue me and I show my appreciation by creating a work of art.

New Hand

Oil painting on canvas, 12" x 12"

This time around I did the painting above to celebrate my new hand and I created an iBook for Dr. Catalano with the images of hands from various paintings and drawings that I have done as well as from famous artists. What do you think of when you picture an iconic artistic image of the human hand? See my answer below.

"Images with Multiple Meanings"

Cat and Mouse, oil painting on canvas

Cat and Mouse (detail of cat/bouquet)

In preparation for my November trip to Morocco, I have been reading about Muslim culture and I was struck by their commonly held belief, even today, that households are inhabited by an invisible fraternity of spirits called Jinns. They are mentioned in the Qur'an and can be a force for good or evil, but are almost always causing mischief.

Perhaps this is the reason I felt the urge to animate the objects in this still life painting that has become an interaction of the personalities between the cat/bouquet and the mouse/lamp.

Since I am committed to this approach, I have been working to reinforce these "hidden" images in a subtle way so that they merely flicker and lend an element of instability and energy to the composition. I have added eyes, ears, a nose and the hint of a mouth to the bouquet but kept the cat/table shadow against the wall a little off kilter so that the illusion is dependent on viewer participation.

Cat and Mouse (detail of mouse/lamp)

The same is true of the mouse/lamp. I pushed the similarity I originally saw between the fanciful shape of the art nouveau lamp and Mickey Mouse. The lamp base took on a shape more suggestive of Mickey's Buster Brown shoes and I added a faint reflection of his trademark ears in the mirror. But I stopped short of cartooning the image, leaving the viewer to discover these touches on his own.

Now I guess I should decide if I will give away the "game" with the title. Maybe I can come up with something less obvious. Any suggestions?

Working in this genre I stand on the shoulders of the past masters who excelled in painting enigmas, ambiguities and double images. Among those artists Giuseppe Arcimboldo, M.C. Escher, and Dali come readily to mind.

Allegory of Summer, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1573

In this painting a portrait of a man is made entirely from the produce of summer. These various fruits, vegetables and cereals constitute an image that symbolizes the intensity of man's connection to the fruits of the earth.

L'Image Desparait, Dali, 1938

In this painting, Dali first presents us with the image of a woman reading a letter and then, with a shift of focus, we see the profile of a man with a moustache and beard. Here, as in most of his work, "Dali's images stand still and yet they have something cinematic about them. . . they do not themselves change, but the viewer is forced to transform them."

--The Endless Enigma: Dali and the Magician of Multiple Meaning, written and published by Hatje Cantz.

Drawing Hands, M.C. Escher, 1948

Perhaps the twentieth century master of visual metamorphosis is M.C. Escher who has the ability to transform shapes seemingly in front of our eyes. "To the extent that one image dawns, the other sinks into the fog." --Ibid

"A right hand is busy sketching a shirt cuff upon a piece of paper. At this point its work is incomplete, but a little further to the right it has already drawn a left hand emerging from a

sleeve in such detail that this hand has come right up out of the flat surface as though it were a living member, and it is sketching the cuff from which the right hand is emerging."

--M.C. Escher: The Graphic Work, introduced and explained by the artist, Taschen Publishers

The Bird of Self Knowledge, Anonymous, 18th Century

"It is impossible to paint just one thing. For when I try to paint it, I always get the thing plus that which it is not. The first is impossible; the second is everything."

--Dali

Dialogues Within My Paintings

With my first painting of the fall season I am going to try to record the evolution of "Cat and Mouse." I have been thinking about doing a series of paintings with scenes from various rooms in my home. I consider my house a very large work of art and the way the rooms are designed reflects my artistic eye as well as my life.

Since I begin each day with my bathroom, this is a natural place to start. Looking around I decide on a tableau against one of the walls. There is a corner of one of my paintings, a mosaic table I made from a NYC cast off, a vase of flowers, an Art Nouveau lamp from my time in Belgium and a mirrored dressing table. I love all the shapes and each of the objects have a special meaning for me. I like the arrangement, but is there a painting here?

After several sketches, I take a photo one evening with light coming only from the lamp on the dressing table. Often dramatic lighting will enliven and begin the dialogue between the objects.

Voila! I see the beginning of a painting.

After noodling around with a small thumbnail sketch. I get excited as the shadow of the mosaic table and flowers looks like a crouching cat and the lamp has the personality of a saucy mouse. This is the dialogue that will inspire the rendering of the painting.

I prepare a 37" x 23" canvas and rough in the drawing and some color.

Wow! I realize the next morning that I actually have a small mouse on my dressing table. It is a Harry Potter mouse that someone gave me years ago and I forgot it was there. Is this destiny? I make a few sketches and try to integrate it into the painting.

This ultimately doesn't work because it complicates and disrupts the overall energy of the painting. After a few days of painting, I have a more complex series of color decisions figured out and the dialogue is progressing. Now I will let it rest and allow the under painting to dry so that I can work on top later without disturbing it.

Looking Forward to Fall 2009

Summer Garden, oil painting on copper on fusion glass

During the last four summers I have painted gardens on the east end of Long Island. But this summer I spent a lot of time creating art from my own garden. Interpreting the landscape in my work became less about reality and more about emotion.

In all the examples from previous summers the oil paintings are enclosed in panels of fusion glass that contain snippets of leaves and blossoms on a painted background. Everything in the fusion glass frame comes from the garden depicted in the painting.

Magical Garden, oil painting with fusion glass

“Magical Garden” is bold in its approach to this large and abundant garden in East Hampton. Organizing the myriad plants and trees into a composition that would be faithful to the original and not impossibly busy was a challenge so I opted for a fantasy recreation that imparted the spirit of the scene.

Jack's Gazebo, oil painting with fusion glass

“Jack’s Gazebo” is part of a trio of paintings that I did of a truly bewitching garden in Water Mill. In this scene I wanted to lead the viewer on a walk in the garden in which one peeks around a corner that leads to another intriguing tableau. Here we have the gazebo, partially hidden from view, with just an edge of the chaise visible. One can only guess if there is someone sitting inside, perhaps taking a mid-summer nap. Should we venture closer?

Trees in Summer Heat, oil painting with fusion glass

“Trees in Summer Heat” is a painting that came out of a pastel sketch I made in a moment of flamboyance. Here is a riot of colorful foliage with the various elements crying out in protest to the heat with only the turquoise water of the pool to cool things off. These plants seem frantic with the energy of a summer day.

Wild Things, oil painting with fusion glass

“Wild Things” is a painting from the area around my firebowl. The stacked stone as well as the rocks on the ground are a counterpoint to the joyous colors of the plants. Here you can appreciate the visual dance between the elements of the painting as they swoop and sway with each other. The central image is only part of an oil painting that continues under the frame. On the other side of the double frame tempered glass is glued on top of the continuing image. This is the easiest way to see how I create my fusion glass artwork which is made with glass on top of paintings and then grouted to appear to be mosaic.

Nasturtiums 1, oil painting on panel

“Nasturtiums 1” is the first of several oil paintings that I made recently of some plants I purchased for my decorative pots. I especially loved the legginess of the nasturtiums and was happy to have grabbed the last two left at Lynch’s one afternoon in early July. The dancing lines were inspired by the random marks that I made in my pencil sketches.

Branch with Pond, detail

Sometimes I create something large that imitates the real world, but adds a bit of fantasy as it mixes in with other elements in the garden. This summer my magnum opus was "Branch with Pond" and it involved working in several different mediums as well as collaborating with an excellent iron monger.

The Pond is crafted from styrofoam encased in cement to keep the overall weight of the sculpture manageable. It is covered in a design mimicking water and a darker reflected image of the branch is painted underneath the actual Branch. Finally, the sculpture is encased in fusion glass and resin.

Branch with Pond, underside

The underside of the Pond is covered with traditional mosaics (in earth tones) which have been grouted and sealed with resin. It rests on a stainless steel platform that allows it to sit 2.25 inches from the ground.

Branch with Pond, mixed-media, 32.5" x 23.5" x 45.5"

The Branch is an actual branch from my garden that has been dried and painted to impart a metallic sheen on the underlying texture of wood. There is an insert of mosaic at the base and the entire piece is sealed in resin to protect it from the elements. It is mounted on the Pond using stainless steel dowels imbedded in the wood and glass to hold it steady as it floats just above the surface. Large pieces of ocean glass have been affixed and sealed around the perimeter.

In the photograph you can see how the piece is integrated into the garden by planting ferns at the edges to further enhance the trompe l’oeil effect. This fall I will post photos of it covered in leaves and in the winter I look forward to a "Branch with Pond" surrounded by snow!