Pagodas
2007 - 11.25"x11.5" Acrylic, black gesso, colored pencil, charcoal, newspaper on wood.
Finished with two coats of Krylon Matte Finish #1311
(Available - $150)

Asian art had been on my mind for a few months and it found it's way into this painting. I had carved some lines into the wood, and it looked like a pagoda (4th floor of left pagoda), so that's what it became. A carved rectangle, near the center of the painting, became part of a second pagoda.

If you look at the photo below, you can see a faint silhouette of the white monster before I had drawn it in. It's a good example of how many images in my paintings are created. They aren't in my head. I see them in the painting and extract them. I remember drawing the image as soon as I saw it, even though I didn't think it fit in with the pagodas. I believe it was subconsciously appealing, because there is a similar figure in Basquiat's Profit 1 (see photo below). I have a pet beta fish, so that was my inspiration for the five colored fish in the sky.

I added the white, pink and blue paint because the pure black and white wasn't working for me. The colors originally had no meaning, especially since they were there before the pagodas were drawn in. After I researched pagodas (see paragraph below), I then saw the colors as a lightning strike. Similarly, the white monster became an Asian evil spirit. I think this is important to mention, because it's another good example of how my artwork comes together. Many artists have true visionary talent and can imagine the painting in their head before it gets painted. My process is nothing like this. It's really just a bunch of random stuff that somehow fits together in the end.

Here are a few photos of the painting in development, and Jean Michel Basquiat's, Profit 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


I was at a complete loss for what to name this painting, so I looked for some ideas by researching pagodas on Wikipedia. Here are a few fun facts about pagodas. The original pagodas were made of wood. Their height attracted lightning and many burned down. The pagodas were thought to be spiritually charged places before the concept of lightning strikes was understood.

There was an ancient pagoda in China called Lingwei that was originally built from wood. It burned down in 1044AD after being struck by lightning. Five years later, the emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty arranged for another pagoda to be built in it's place. The new pagoda was made of glazed bricks. Many of the bricks were an iron color, and the pagoda was later named the Iron Pagoda. The pagoda has withstood high winds, torrential rains, earthquakes and even a flood. It still stands today, so iron also represents it's resilience to nature's forces. The Iron Pagoda is thirteen stories tall, so it's had quite a bit of good luck over it's lifetime.

I considered naming the painting Iron Pagoda since I really liked the story, but later decided to just keep it simple.