New Paintings From Kelli Rudick & Bonobo

> Imagery

2009 10 07 & 23 The B-Side Lounge (Kelli Rudick, Gloam & Jungle Bums)
18"x24" - opaque pens on canvas panel
11"x17" signed prints - $15

Certain events are major obstacles to my intended painting. Kelli Rudick is a badass neoclassical-experimental live looper who plays percussive guitar and several unique instruments like the array mbira and nail violin. Gloam put on a surprisingly epic show – one of Boulder's sweetest prog rock ensembles, solid beyond their years. And the Jungle Bums are a hard-hitting drum & bass collective with some pretty impressive rappers. Which meant that at both of these shows, I didn't get a lot of work done...I was too busy watching, dancing, or just hanging out. So I took this out to the Boulder Farmer's Market last weekend and set my easel in the grass next to other rogue vendors with lovely feather earrings and a massage chair. It was a beautiful and strangely warm fall day, and everyone was in a good mood. You can't tell too well from this picture, but the yellow orbs in the background have a lot of gold in them and they gleam like medallions in the sunshine.

2009 10 22 Cervantes (Bonobo, Mike Slot, Juno What, Jantsen)

20"x30" - opaque pens on masonite
11"x17" signed prints - $15

I spent the first hour+ on this one with a fat-tipped green marker just making the trees, one sweeping feathery stroke after another in a state of hypnotic flow. My friend, fellow painter Tye-Dye Paul, who falls far more on the "energy painting" side of the spectrum than I do, was very supportive of this expressive and gestural work, and came over to shoot me significant looks and cast spells of blessing on the painting while I was at work. It was really intense, but he is a considerate guy and always asks before getting all up in my space. Apparently not every painter is into his extreme acts of professional friendliness. At any rate, expect more trees like these. It was a liberating new approach, and took me deep into memories of old trips out at Clinton Lake in Lawrence, Kansas, glowing kaleidoscopic jewelry breathing out of the bare winter woods...

New Year's 2009 Week Paintings (Denver & Boulder)

Each painting is available in 11"x17" prints for $15 each.
(Email me - michaelgarfield at gmail dot com - if interested.)

18x24, available for sale - 2008 12 29 Cervantes (Everyone Orchestra, Eric McFadden Trio)
Experiment in pseudo-tesselating stars, hexagons, and diamonds; three variations on a bubbling fringe; suggestions of a hidden gold and white layer behind and between; broad hatches as background noise; an occasional eye; implying directionality in flow. At Everyone Orchestra conductor Matt Butler's suggestion, I got this one signed on back by half of the band (a first).


18x24, available for sale - 2008 12 30 Cervantes (Panjea, DNALand, Lynx & Janover)
Play with ribbons: creation of an "obstacle scape" through which to thread orbs while teaching myself about layering; precision trial in black outlining; attempted "curtain" effect with ambiguous implied-motion relationship between ribbons and orbs (Rising together? Falling together? Moving past one another?); use of simple color theory to suggest depth (blues behind reds to simulate "bluing" with distance).


18x24, reserved until February - 2008 12 31.1 Quixotes (Sporque, Vibesquad) (late show for the 30th)
One continuous field of hexagons (reiterated inside themselves) split into two "passing" schemes; an attempt at something more primordial and diagramatic (as if those two things go together). Purple lines in the blue sections half-create cubes, and half leave it looking like a cross-section. It reminds me of a microscopic view of pollen collected on some membrane, or maybe natural glass.


18x24, available for sale - 2008 12 31.2 Cervantes (Panjea, DNALand, Lynx & Janover)
Another study in curtains of helices and bubbles, this time more formally related. Hoping to follow the festive New Year's theme resulted in inadvertently and uncannily illustrating the purple ribbons hanging from balloons on stage (although they weren't released until after I'd started the painting...). People kept asking if I was painting the balloons. I guess I was.


18x24, available for sale - 2009 01 01 Crowne Plaza Hotel & Owsley's (Boombox, Everyone Orchestra, & Vince Herman) (late shows for the 31st)
Picked up from a monochrome tunnel pattern I started on this board but left in my trunk for a month, this one's awkwardly balanced between two and three dimensions (Are the minicubes inside the bigger ones, or attached to their faces? Are the bubbles emerging from the golden void within each cube, or resting on their golden lids? Are the cubes actually receding into the distance, or just getting smaller?). Ambiguity and liminality were kind of themes for the night, but I can't claim total intentionality.


18x24, reserved until February - 2009 01 02 Rock N Roll Grill (Project Aspect, Motion Montage, Jeff The Box)
I wanted the ribbons in this piece to obviously organize the orbs, sweeping them up into a coil rather than just interacting idly - not a caress, but a grab - thus the contrast between free-floating and "wrapped" elements. Hexagons give a "trellis" style backdrop, and I finally attempted some kind of patterning on the ribbon itself. Lots of silver outlining. The artists at this show are all local basement projects that merit your attention - I can easily see this same line-up selling out The Fox in a year, so take notice!


18x24, available for sale - 2009 01 03 The Fox Theatre (Bonobo, Big Gigantic, Future Simple Project)
Varying states of completion in two interlocking elements (the flowers and orb clusters) made for a quick background that still gives the sense of approaching/receding and various depths; "plants" and jellyfish in the foreground rooted the image in something recognizable and took the flow off the sides of the board. Simple foreground coloration didn't confound the already-intricate backdrop. Modularity was emphasized. After a year of people telling me I draw deep-sea stuff, this is the first one to put representational and nonrepresentational elements together in the same painting in a way that unequivocally shouts "aquarium!" Expect more stuff like this, probably integrated with the ribbons and helices, in the months to come.