This week, I’m focusing on one of my favorite paintings from 2021 – Sunday Afternoon.
If last week’s painting – Dennis – recalls an Edward Hopper painting, this one looks a bit like a still from a Hitchcock movie imagined by David Hockney.
A woman in a blue bikini reclines on a chaise lounge while a large ominous shadow looms against the backyard wall. The sliding patio door behind her remains tantalizingly ajar. I'm not really sure what is going on here – I’ll let you imagine that – but Sunday Afternoon feels suggestive of a story.
What I really like about the work is my experimentation with color. Every painting I do ends up being a dialogue between two or three different colors. I try to predict what colors those colors will be when I start but more often than not, the painting has different ideas. A lot of my process is simply playing around with different shades of color until something magically gels. With this work, the painting apparently wanted to go with more extreme colors than usual. As soon as I used that peach-orange for the towels, the painting just started to work.
Anyway, Sunday Afternoon is in my online store here.
And, for the next two weeks, prints of the work will also be available here. Check it out.