Painting and drawing has always been an essential part of my life. My aunt remembers me as a toddler propped up on a chair so that I could reach the blackboard that my grandmother had on her kitchen wall, spending hours drawing with colored chalks. Even during later times of my life when other priorities had taken over and I was not following my creative urges, art was still an essential—albeit suppressed—part of my life. Even then, my bottled-up compulsion to be an artist was omnipresent (and making me miserable). It seemed as if something inside me was fighting relentlessly to emerge. Finally in 1985,after years of skirting around this creative need, I acquiesced and began painting professionally. I have enjoyed making up for lost time ever since!
Composition:
When I paint, my primary goal is to create a composition that is aesthetically exciting. The typical viewer of photorealist or hyperrealist art will first be impressed with the often startling realism recreated in these genres of paintings—the striking reflections in a storefront window, the drama created by carefully placed shadows, or the flashy rendering of an automobile. Sometimes I find that photorealist/hyperrealist painters can duplicate reality with a technical facility that is awe inspiring, but their paintings may to have little to offer to the viewer beyond that technical slickness. Like all such artists, I attempt to create a technically sharp realistic image, but contrary to what one may suspect, that is not my chief preoccupation: composition is what fascinates me. To me, a complicated, tenuously, carefully balanced composition is extremely satisfying and contributes more deeply to the overall power of the work than do mere flashy rendering techniques alone.
My Process:
A major part of my process is selection of the scene to be painted. I go to numerous locales, take countless photos and examine them, combine them, etc. often taking months until I find the right combination of visual elements, the right composition. My paintings are not mere reproductions of these photographs. I alter, rearrange, distort, remove, and simplify design elements according to the needs of my composition. My compositions always make use of visual rhythms--often through the repetition of similar shapes, through the contrast of vertical against horizontal elements, and through balancing of elements by use of color relationships.
Often--but not always--I briefly project slides of my photos onto the canvas, using projection as an initial tool in my painting process. Artists (e.g., van Eyck, Holbein, Caravaggio, etc.) began making heavy use of such optical tools early in the Renaissance, and have continued ever since. I project only a rough outline, after which, I continue with a more detailed freehand drawing . Not until this initial drawing is made do I begin painting. As I paint, I constantly change the drawing as I proceed, often distorting elements of the drawing/painting in order to enhance the composition, or to pull the viewer’s eye into the work.
With my focus on drawing, it is not surprising that a specific characteristic of my process includes careful attention to line work. Loving lines and the visual energy that they project, I carefully outline all of the objects in my paintings, occasionally coloring the line in a hue that contrasts to the color of object, and using strong lines on outside edges of objects, and weaker lines on internal edges of objects--all techniques to better define how the object cuts through space and to make that image visually “pop.”
Another characteristic of my process is that I use the paint as both an opaque and a transparent medium (e.g. using glazes to create specific effects such as soft shadows, objects viewed through glass, the haze on distant elements in the landscape, etc.). As a quickly drying medium, acrylic paints facilitate the use of these dual techniques.
My Subjects:
It may surprise some people to learn that initially I pay little attention to the subject content of my painting. When selecting a subject that I am going to paint, I choose one with elements that will work aesthetically into an exciting composition. After that, I try to select subjects that suggest a distinctive mood that is representative of that particular locale; I try to give the observer a sense of place (though generally I try to avoid using obvious landmarks). Another characteristic of my works is that often they combine a hodgepodge of seemingly unrelated, contrasting subject components that blend together in a surprisingly unified whole.
I intentionally avoid consciously selecting my subject matter along political, social, or philosophical themes. Such calculated depiction of the artist’s viewpoint may seem heavy-handed and risks trivializing more profound subliminal messages. Also I avoid overanalyzing the subject content of my work. For me, nothing is more tedious than hearing artists drone on and on about the “profound” meaning of their work. Artwork should speak for itself. I find that when an artist designs a work to project a specific point of view or a very personal esoteric subject, the viewer’s experience is overly predefined and limited.
Yet, even though I intentionally avoid painting that overtly expresses a specific viewpoint, I must admit that I when I look at my completed paintings, I do find that my works do tend to spontaneously project certain themes nevertheless. I find that these themes are all the more interesting, powerful, and universal because of the fact that they have evolved unconsciously and unintentionally. One recurrent theme that I find in much of my work is that of the dynamics of change with the passage of time. Another theme is the juxtaposition of the urban environment’s complexity with that same setting’s role as a human environment. Finally, I find that my work often celebrates scenes that are uniquely American and typical of the U.S urban landscape.
Visit my website: http://glennmoreton.artspan.com/
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