The Naked Silo

30" x 36", oil on canvas, 2015, private collection This is one of two portraits I painted of Toronto-based musician George Meanwell. My intent was to enter one of them into the 2015 Kingston Prize for portraiture, so I painted two and submitted the one I liked better. I submitted the other one. Although the hands in this one make me pretty happy, I feel I got George's likeness better in the other painting where he's playing a concertina. I like this right hand a lot. Early stage. Earlier stage.

36" x 30", oil on canvas, 2015, private collection This is the portrait I painted of Toronto-based musician George Meanwell which I submitted for the 2015 Kingston Prize for portraiture. I took many photos of George playing concertina, banjo , and cello during his stay here at Small Pond back in November 2014. It was always a delight to hear him practicing in his room upstairs, and even better to have him play while he posed for me. I got a lot of great shots, but I was only planning on painting two portraits (and submitting the one I liked better), so I sadly had to cut the cello (but who knows –maybe one day I'll paint another portrait of George playing it). Incidentally, the very first portrait I submitted to the KP (in 2011) was a painting I did of PEC farmer  George Emlaw  (which didn't make it into the exhibition). The next one (in 2013; it takes place every other year) was  a self portrait  (this didn't get in, either). So, here I am, two years l...

The first ten paintings from my Tournament of Shadows project will be on display (and for sale) during May 2015 at Closson Chase . Here's the write-up for the show: Conjuring imagery from dreams, fantasies, and mythology and combining them with a painterly alchemy, Milé Murtanovski’s Tournament of Shadows carries narratives that shift and transform, almost particle by particle, for each person who sees the paintings. An ambitious 100-painting project that will take years to complete, these first ten paintings serve as a long-range forecast of things to come.

This blog post compiles all the links to all 100 paintings of my big World War One art project I called To the Sound of Trumpets . I've set this up in sections according to how the exhibition was arranged at Macaulay Museum in November 2014. We begin with the Archduke Franz Ferdinad and his assassin, Gavrilo Princip: Catalysts for Calamity Dance Partners 1 Dance Partners 2 through 5 Dance Partners 6 through 9 To the Sound of Trumpets Entrenched Over the Top And the Women Went Also R&R Nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus Snow March Dance Masks Gas Attack Nunc est bibendum Troubles on Top of Troubles This Silent Countryside Captured! Wounded More Wounded "Send More Men" Buried Bang Bang Toys War Progression Effective Range: 50 Yards Children of Mars Across This Antheap The Kindest Cut The Empty Schoolhouse Flamethrower! Writing Between the Fi...

To the sound of voice and piano. During the exhibition of my World War One painting project (11-30 November 2014) I had a selection of music playing in the venue ( Macaulay Church Museum in Picton, ON) to convey an overall sense of melancholy –not sadness– while visitors looked at the paintings. Among the songs was one called "So" by my friend, writer and musician  Gayleen Froese , which always makes me think of a snowy winter's day whenever I hear it –and we did get some snow during the exhibition. The mood of it was perfect for my show and I was very happy when she said I could use it for a video showing all of the paintings in their proper display order, starting with the Archduke Ferdinand and his assassin, and ending with the Remembrance section. This video lasting 3 minutes and 45 seconds represents almost ten months of work, from the first documentary watched to the last brush stroke applied (not to mention the 8 hours spent hanging the show the day be...

12" x 16", oil on wood panel, 2014 There is an age-old tradition of presenting St. Sebastian as a symbol of the artist himself, suffering the pangs of artistic creation; the execution of the saint is a homonym for the execution of the work of art and the death of the saint symbolizes its completion. Ever since the early Renaissance Sebastian's arrows have symbolized the painter's brushes, pointing inwards, penetrating him, conveying the idea that "every painter paints himself."  Egon Schiele 's Self Portrait as St. Sebastian from 1914-15 (the very obvious basis for my painting here) fits perfectly within my World War One painting project , having been painted around the outset of WWI. Putting myself into the painting symbolizes the completion of my 100-piece project and serves as yet another memento mori: the inscription making reference to the fact that, even in Arcadia (i.e. the safety of my studio) one day I, too, will die.

14" x 11", oil on wood panel, 2014 Much of my WWI painting project conveys an over all theme and this painting's sentiment was essentially my conclusion about war in general, the words in the piece specifically inspired by " Us and Them " by Pink Floyd  (and also a little bit by " Where Are We Now? " by David Bowie ). This angry skull really wants conflict in perpetuity, but we can deny it through empathy for our fellow humans.