Creating Cosmic Dance – 10-12-23

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Great Concept

This oil painting ‘Cosmic Dance – 10-12-23’ is an elaboration of my graphite pencil drawing ‘Roundism – 10-03-20’. Many of them still are in queue. Another one finished though. As explained before I consider all my sketches and drawings prestudies for paintings. It goes without saying I choose the ones I consider the best first. This one I always liked because of the concept. The reference picture I used is from the 1920s or maybe early 1930s. Unfortunately I couldn’t retrieve a name so I cannot give credit to the original photographer. A great model she is too by the way. I am fond of the overstretched position. Therefor I hope I can find a woman who can strike such a pose any time soon now.

Tune Down Color Saturation

So far so good. I transferred the model freehandedly and quickly. Then I found myself facing the real challenge like I knew I had it coming. Normally I carefully avoid using the same color schemes over and over again. Surely that’s out of fear of getting bored or becoming a one trick pony and so I experimented. Yeah, right! Soon the painting exploded into colors way too saturated. That’s what I also suffered from doing the last oil, called ‘Nina – 12-10-23’. Lately I am very sensitive to this phenomenon. Perhaps this has something to do with my taste becoming more subtle. I have read about artists in the past going through the same process. In younger years one often ‘twist and shout’ whereas in later years one becomes receptive to browns and greys. They represent more subtle conversations between colors. Therefor I always associate colors with human relations.

Walk Down the Path

Consequently I decided to change things around a bit and redo big planes in the negative space first. I let them vary from black, earth reds, greens and then blue. It doesn’t happen that often I used this hugh amounts of black. I remember Renoir called it the ‘queen of colors’. When I come to think of it the oil resembles last two paintings both in style and color scheme. It is as if this is the path I just had to walk down. Besides that, even though I am interested in laying thick patches of paint I have realized something else. Everybody is or has been doing that for ages now. I can’t excel in that or stand out in the crowd. Therefor I’d rather stick with smooth transitions a little bit longer. They are distinct and represent the subtlety I wanted to create.

Title

The title ‘Cosmic Dance’ refers not only to the dancing lady but merely to the dance of frequencies of light. The woman only represents them. I paraphrase the first sentences of Genesis: First there was darkness and out of that light and colors arose. Worth mentioning is I was listening to ‘Kozmik’ by Ziggy Marley, making up this title. Everything in its right place!

Oil on wood panel (100 x 63 cm)