I’m reading this picture, based on its composition. This will be a preliminary reading. I’ll point out a few obvious things and see what I can gather from this. It is possible to read much more in the picture, and maybe I’ll do this in the next entry.
It has two layers, as many of my paintings lately. The drawing layer has three areas. The right side has many architectural shapes. It is organized in mostly perpendicular and horizontal directions, with a few diagonals, that you can find in architecture too.
The left side has shapes that are more organic. The shapes are free from the straight angles of the right side and they grow into each other. The third area is where there is no drawing, or only little short lines that seem to float in space. That’s where there is less density and more freedom.
The pencil lines, those that define the colored areas, go on top of the watercolor lines. In this way they create some confusion, because the colors inside of the pencil lines are all underneath the ochre lines of the drawing. This contradictory message creates a strong connection of the background shapes and the drawing, indicating that the two layers are very close to each other and depend on each other to tell the story of the picture. And it is hard to decide what is more important or primary.
The color shapes in the right side go along with the feeling of architecture or a city. The color shapes on the left go along with the feeling of an organic shape, something that is alive and moving. It is like a person in a sitting position. His two hands are extended to the far left, and it seems that he is doing something outside of the picture.
And there is indeed space around the person and the part of the city that we see. Some smaller shapes float there, breaking the density of the city and the man and giving the picture some places with less tension to rest in.
So the focus of the man is in the more spacious area. That’s what he is interested in.
Basically we have a transition from an area that is densely full of visual events, through more relaxed shapes, that break the straight lines rule, to the beginning of space, into which the smaller pieces of the reality that’s on the right are falling or spreading.
In a shorter way, the picture shows the shift from eventful and intense reality to more peacefulness and freedom.
This is an experience of the now-life that we can read in the basic features of the composition.
If I ask myself where would I want to be, in this picture, the answer is “In all three places.”
I’d like to experience the peace that is outside of the objects, I’d like to experience the richness of the city, and I’d like to experience my body, alive and feeling.
And as I have all three of them at the same time, I can say that I am fulfilled. In this fulfillment there is peace too, till the next interest will catch me.
Isn’t this amazing that from so little you can say so much already?
I do not know what name to give this new chapter. Everything is different for me, and the same. I decide to let the chapter grow and deserve a name, and then it will have it.
