The Naked Silo

approx. 15" x 11", watercolour, 1996, private collection At the time I was doing portraits of my crewmates at The Shopping Channel (click on the TSC tag below to see them), one of our camera operators, Kristine, asked if I could do a portrait based on an old photo of her dad (and, I think, his brother). So I did, and retained the monochromatic nature of the reference photo rather than colourizing it (I might have tried if she asked for that, but we both agreed subtle blue monochromatic tones would work best).

22" x 30", watercolour, 1994 Even though I don't believe in angels the imagery still kind of appeals to me –mostly it's the wings, and this particular pair I added to my friend, Sue, are based on a statue of the  Winged Victory (AKA Nike) of Samothrace I took a liking to from an art history book. The title is taken from the cartoon below which itself is on the back cover of a comic anthology from the UK called A1 from the 1980s. This is the back of Book 3 (March 1989, or thereabouts –which I still happily have). The cartoon's written by Jean-Luc Coudray and drawn by the legendary  Moebius (AKA Jean Giraud ). The  whimsical humour of it, combined with the gorgeous drawing, have made it stick in my mind all these years.

No Swimming 22" x 30", watercolour 1996 One chilly fall day my friend, Kim, and I went to the Scarborough Bluffs to look around and see what we could shoot for possible future paintings, and I shot a couple of rolls of film in a couple of hours or so. Ultimately, I decided I'd do two paintings: a "clean" one and a "dirty" one, both paintings inspired by the beauty of the cliffs as well as the "No Swimming" sign and garbage at the site. Scarborough's beaches have been on-again/off-again clean and filthy and this was during a no-so-nice time. The bottom painting is straight from the photos taken at the Bluffs, but it was way too cold to have Kim in a swimsuit there, so we went back to her warm house and I took some pics for that painting (as well as others; click on her name in the "labels" below to see some of them). Before, Below, Beside 15" x 20", watercolour, Collection of The City of Scarborough The ...

11" x 13", watercolour, 1999, private collection Though not her first album, I became aware of Melanie Doane  and her music with Adam's Rib  in 1998. I was even at the venue on one of the two nights when she recorded the shows for her Melvin Live CD (a great show and a great live disc). I did another painting illustrating some lyrics from her song "Waiting for the Tide" featuring Doane and the moon, but the title ended up being used in this rather literal painting  featuring Elaine Secord who was currently with the band Squirm who released their album Cold the same year. If the perspective seems weird, it's because the photo I used for reference is actually a still from one of her videos where the camera's above her and she's looking up.

15" x 15", watercolour, 1993, private collection My main reason for doing this painting was to challenge myself by revisiting the complex reflectivity and transparency of glass (not really attempted since this painting a few years before). I think the glass on the right and the reflection on the top of the middle glass turned out quite well. I admit, I'm not sure that's actually the correct title for this painting, and I don't remember who's got it so I can check.

triptych; each panel: 15" x 11", watercolour, 1993 The black bars are actually from the mat in which windows were cut to frame these three separate paintings together as a triptych (as intended, since only the far left panel is signed). I played around with windows-in-the-mat approach with a number of paintings around this time and this might be my first use of it (see also Postmodern Pranksterism  and  Body Language ).

15" x 22", watercolour, 1993 Using my own reference photo from a trip to Disney World in '92 for the restaurant and reference from a magazine for the woman, this is one of my first paintings combining separate photo reference (see also: Timing is Everything ... Caitlin ... Corridor ). It's also a bit of an experiment in contrasting cool & rigid with soft & warm, yet trying to make the composition harmonious.