Reagan Alley

Reagan Alley

Untitled, Assignment for Intermediate/Advanced Painting

Spring 2016

Acrylic on canvas

This painting was based on a still life that I constructed. My still life was made of cardboard, string and acrylic paint, and its geometry inspired the planes and shapes in my painting. The still life was a sheet of cardboard with three shapes protruding from it, each connected to the others by string woven around and between them. In my painting, the outside edges of each shape and the outlines of the string act as barriers for different sections of the painting. The painting focuses on four different natural landscapes – a lake at sunset, a winter forest, western rock cliffs and an underwater scene. Scattered around the landscapes are sections that resemble folded sheets of metal. The edges of the painting are black, with a section of green, of blue and of purple misty paint dabs that appear as a harsh line and fade out into a cloud and then melt into blackness. This was my first experience with creating a painting that was based off of a construction. My use of bright, neon colors that contrast with darker blues and blacks was very effective at providing interesting contrast and hues. However, the areas with neon green, blue and purple seem to be an afterthought, rather than an incorporated and meaningful part of the piece. One choice that would have made this painting more cohesive is if I had made a clearer connection between the choice to paint landscapes and the weird, kinky personality of my still life. Still lives, though interesting to me, might not have been the most effective choice of subject to express the mood of the still life.