Larking Lizards and Carpboat in Drifts of Rain

Friday, September 2, 2011

Larking Lizards and Carpboat in Drifts of Rain

I've got a couple of end pieces about, and it's Friday so it's time for another Archipelago of the Three Lovers painting. (Essentially these are abstracts, at least in my approach to painting them.)
Here's the premise of this series:
It's a science fiction scene. Imagine three planets (the three lovers) in close orbit around a point in space. They're close enough together to share an atmosphere and occasionally scrap by each other knocking bits and pieces, plants, animals and people off into this shared atmosphere and these rocks then hang suspended like motes of dust within the shifting gravitational pull of the three planets. This is the archipelago, drifting 'islands' in free fall in the space between the worlds. I seem to remember an Edger Rice Burroughs book with twin worlds and a shared atmosphere, but I think three worlds would work better.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

2 comments:

ChristianSeptember 2, 2011 at 6:41 PM
very interesting concept! :)
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Charles LitkaSeptember 4, 2011 at 3:49 PM
Thanks for your comments; always welcome. As I mentioned somewhere in this blog or on deviantart, it is hard to paint something unfamiliar impressionistically without viewers wondering 'what is it?'. I just had to get comfortable with the idea that 'what is it?' is not a bad thing...
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What I'm Up To

I think artist’s statements are largely needless. Paintings speak for themselves. And yet, here I am set to rattle on about my approach to painting. Now, if you're of the same opinion as I claim to be, skip this and enjoy the paintings, but if you want a hint as to what I’m trying to do, here’s the words.

I approach painting via two different roads that arrive at the same place. The first is that I paint only “studies” or sketches. Back in the day artists painted quick studies to get the colors and features down to use as a guide to paint a finished studio painting. Funny thing is of the paintings I’ve seen together with their studies, I’ve always preferred the loose and spontaneous studies over the stiff and polished finished painting. For that reason I’ve chosen to paint only studies.

My second approach to painting is inspired by a quote from the writer, Raymond Chandler: “I guess maybe there are two types of writers, writers who write stories and writers who write writing.” He considered himself of one of the latter, as do I which is to say; writers who’s words are entertaining in and of themselves, independent of the story. Perhaps painters could be divided the same way: Painters who paint pictures and painters who paint paintings. While I don’t consider one type superior to the other, I aim to be a painter of paintings. I want to paint paintings that capture a moment, inspire or recall a memory or mood, but which, viewed longer or closer, or with one's glasses on, prove to be clearly paintings: paint brushed into shapes on a surface. That these mere shapes can create an impression they’re something else, for a moment, or at a distance is the independent interest I would like my paintings to possess, not because they realistically reproduce branches, or water or what ever, but because they don’t. What I don't want to paint is places or post card scenes, even though landscape are the medium which I use for my painting.

The Day's Work - Paintings of C. Litka

Friday, September 2, 2011