Rubbed Down Into a Fine Veil of Color

My paintings are not about surface, they are about depth.  They are not about defining, they are about leaving open a space for interpretation.  They don't give answers, they ask questions.  And they are not machine made.

A frequent comment to me is that my paintings look like a giclee--an ink jet printed COPY of an original.  Absent in my works are the brushstrokes and textural elements of what people attribute to oil painting.  I rub that all away.  I thin my paint and layer my paint to create the spaces that transport a viewer into the nuances of color.  Texture is a distraction to this journey--as is line.  And yet, the precious handling of my surface and the almost perfection of the plane leads some to believe that a machine created it.  Not a defense I like to have to attend to when talking about my work.  Fine rubbed down into a veil of color should be an appreciation of my technical skill and less a comparison to an inexpensive reproduction.

But, people want to see that remnant of handmadeness because that equates to --what--originality, I guess.   And yet, they don't want to pay for it.  I don't make giclees of my work.  There is no way to photographically capture the subtleties in my paintings, and therefore no way to accurately reproduce my work.  An irony in this whole dialogue.

See here for another post on this painting.

A Glow Perpetuating Itself Into The Memory, 36 x 36 in oil on canvas

A Will Cotton Moment-Minus the Nude

Nearly finished (top)
48 x 48 in oil on canvas

Cotton Candy Katy, Will Cotton, 72 x 84 inches

I'm continuing my work on a series of large scale cloud paintings.  Today's effort found me in a sherbert palette unlike anything I've ever encountered on my canvas before.  The warm Alizarin Yellow with a Quinacridone created this cotton candy color and suddenly I was transported into a Will Cotton candy landscape--not so much the intention.   Rather, I'd been thinking about how my meditation on a particular poem usually resides only as an aside to the viewer--a part of the title tag at the exhibit.   This painting represented a bit of a departure for me in that I scripted the poem onto the canvas and used the shapes of the words and the markings to form the folds in the clouds.  Words, data, thoughts, feelings, impressions-- in the cloud.  I'm concerned about not losing too much of the pentimento of the poem--love the idea that it's under there.

A Sense of Scale

Source: annawolf.com via Sharon on Pinterest

At right, my painting, Cumulus Umber (50 x 70 in, oil on canvas, 2012)  photographed with a Mies Barcelona style bench--which is 6 feet long.  Still feels a bit sterile, but does give the online viewer of my works a sense of scale.   At left, an interior from pinterest that I think this painting is perfect for!

Painting Large Clouds

Most recent iteration, 48 x 48 in, oil on canvas,

Untitled, photographed in the shade, 48 x 48 in, oil on canvas

I'm committed to painting large.  This painting is 48 x 48 and the subject and my style are quite wonderful at this scale.  Not only do I feel like the luckiest person on earth when I'm working on these paintings in my studio, but I am completely engrossed in both the process and the result.  It's as if every painting I've done over the past two years has been a study for these new works.  There is subtlety and boldness, energy and calm, depth and surface and just a universe for the eye to wander in.  Rilke is all about merging the polarity of existence--and finding a way to express and unify these elements in my paintings has been an underlying intent in my work since embracing his words as a muse for my work.

I began this work shortly after my father-in-law Cy died.  I think about him every time I work on this vast unsayable space.  And I think about his wife of almost 60 years--who must just miss him with her whole being. And the idea that no matter what our beliefs, the mystery of death endures--

Rilke wrote these words about life and death...

This laboring of ours with all that remains undone,
as if still bound to it,
is like the lumbering gait of the swan.

And then our dying—releasing ourselves
from the very ground on which we stood—
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself

into the water. It gently receives him,
and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him,
as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure,
allows himself to glide.

New Poems, Rainer Maria Rilke 

A book of paintings and poetry

I just created this small book of paintings and poetry for my upcoming exhibit at Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle titled Reading Rilke: the poetic paintings of Sharon Kingston.  You may view it by clicking the image below. You can purchase through my facebook store.

Here is the press for the exhibit:

Visual artist Sharon Kingston has been contemplating the words of Rainer Maria Rilke for some time now. During April's national poetry month, Seattle's Fountainhead Gallery will present a group of paintings Sharon refers to as the Reading Rilke series.  Inspired by the prose and poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and the atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest, Sharon's works are a method and means to wrestle with themes such as transformation, impermanence, the unknown and the unsaid through the art forms of poetry and painting.

Poets and painters have long inspired each other.   Sharon marries these art forms by taking as source the ineffable ideas expressed by Rilke in his poetry and employing a method of layering transparent oil paint and creating subtle shifts of color to create depth with a minimalism of form.  It is her hope that these mysterious, undefined and atmospheric images hold the subjective and sensory allure of abstract painting along with the emotional draw of landscape painting and allow the viewer to create their own meaning from the poetry and paintings.  

The Fountainhead Gallery exhibit will be Sharon Kingston's first featured artist exhibit in the Seattle area.  Sharon has exhibited extensively in Bellingham and has been very active in the downtown Bellingham artwalk scene.  Her paintings are currently offering a healing presence at the Healing through Art program at St. Josephs Medical Center.  Reading Rilke: The Poetic Paintings of Sharon Kingston will run April 5 - April 29, 2012 at the Fountainhead Gallery, 625 W McGraw, Seattle.  An artist reception will be held April 7 from 5 to 7 pm.

The Unity of Dread and Bliss II

Cumulus Umber, 50 x 70, oil on canvas
Sharon Kingston, 2012
on exhibit at The Fountainhead Gallery, Seattle
April 5 - April 29, 2012

Nimbus Grey (Embracing the Storm), 50 x 70, oil on canvas
Sharon Kingston, 2011
on exhibit at St. Joseph's Medical Center Healing
Through Art Exhibit until May 19, 2012

Today I approached a big canvas.  Significant is that over the past year I've found myself  celebrating big accomplishments or decisions with a big canvas.  As if all the dread and bliss associated with the big events of my life get bottled up and await the time when I can relieve myself of it all in my work--in a big way.  Coming through to the other side is how I felt this morning before I set to work.  Feeling a sense of accomplishment in completing a major project, keeping it together through a bucketload of travails, including my husband's father dying last weekend, watching a life plan get shattered and finding ways to pick up the pieces and all in all, just feeling ever so grateful for the opportunities that I've been given and the great loves I have.  Storms have an energy that is both fearful and exciting--and really, that's life in a nutshell.  To experience it all and challenge ourselves means facing the anxiety head on.  Many sleepless nights precipitated the event that precipitated this painting.  I feel a bit invincible--mainly due to the remaining adrenaline in my system. 

The person who has not, in a moment of firm resolve, accepted--yes, even rejoiced in--what has struck him with terror--he has never taken possession of the full, ineffable power of our existence.  He withdraws to the edge; when things play out, he will be neither alive nor dead. 

Previously in this blog I talked about how the painting Nimbus Grey was conceived and created on the day that I decided to give up the role of gallerist (which also coincided with having just spent months painting sky studies).  Last month I was again telling the story of the significance to me of the beautiful fir stretcher bars that back this painting. These were handmade for my artist friend Jane Hamilton Hovde by her husband AJ Hovde over 30 years ago--and then gifted to me. For many years my young children and I had delivered library books to Jane's home.  She shared with us over tea all her wonderful tales of the artistic life she led, all while surrounded by her fantastic paintings and view of Samish Bay.   You can read a bit about Jane and AJ's most exciting life here, including friendships with Jack Shadbolt, Mark Tobey and W.H. Auden.  Ironically, opening the gallery and other obligations had prevented me from visiting Jane for some time.  All in all, I had been quite intimidated to approach this canvas given its history and personal connection, but opportunity and intent met preparation--finally.

Representing the abstract with the abstract

The ideas I wrestle with--spirituality, the unknown, death, wonder, the possible, the unanswerable--are all abstract concepts not easily defined by a signifier.  Some artists attempt to "talk" about these subjects through narratives or symbolic paintings.  I choose to use the words of Rilke--and his landscape metaphors--to meld the ideas with the abstracted landscape imagery.  Rarely is there a subject/object in my paintings--nor is there line or texture.  It is just atmosphere and the depth created from layers of transparent colors representing the abstract with the abstract.  That is, until today.  Today I placed an object in a painting.

I've been mulling over Lesley Dill's work since seeing it at The Whatcom Museum.  I was struck by how she leaves loose threads in her embroidery works--as she has said in an attempt to lead her viewers with a tangible thread from the world of the mortal to the immortal, just as on Hindu temples the tongue cascading down the temple wall leads one from the world of man to the world of the gods.  And applying this to my work, I've thought about how an object in the midst of the atmosphere might give an entry for the viewer to lead them from the concrete to the abstract--and into a deeper interpretation of both the painting and the poem.

Now this is hard for me.  I like soft edges.  I like the undefined.  I don't like to give answers but to leave mystery.  I like viewers to find their own way through the paintings.  But, I also like change.  And I want to understand how people find meaning.  And the process leads me to believe that the object might cause a pause, enough of a pause to read the words and look at the painting anew.  And that's what I want, an exchange.  A flow back and forth so that people leave my work changed in some small way.

Here's what I worked on in the studio today.  I am preparing for a two person exhibit at The Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle in April (National Poetry Month, fabulous) and am experimenting with my infatuation with Turner.  The studio is full of works in progress and it is so much fun.  All big works--over 36 x 36.

Work in Progress, 36 x 36 in, oil on canvas

Making a World in progress, 36 x 36 in, oil on canvas

Untitled in progress, Turner Upturned, 36 x 36 in, oil on canvas