The medium or media we choose to convey our deepest feelings and expressions, etc., however competent, can never fully convey the whole complicated concepts our brain formed mysteriously, thus the endless striving to meet the challenge, to do a better job still in the next given opportunity, thus the hunger to develop and grow as an artist, be it visual, musical compositional or a writing kind.
It also occurs often enough that one form of artistic creation, spurs on the re-interpretation with another media of either the whole story or a fleeting moment, not necessarily to prove a better job can be done; rather, to add another dimension to the engaging concept while hoping to complement the original.
I have been stimulated, on multiple occasions, by novels I read, sometimes the whole atmosphere of the book, such as
Blindness by José Saramago, or sometimes, just a specific passage which may not even be pivotal in the whole scheme, such as my newly completed oil painting,
Arabesque, inspired by a passage from
The Known World by Edward P. Jones: "... looked over at
the open chiffarobe [sic], whose door was broken and so would never
close properly, looked at the black dress hanging there. It seemed to
have its own life, so much life that it could have come down and walked
over and placed itself over her body. Fastened itself."
Arabesque, Oil on Canvas, 28"x22", 2013
I actually was quite stirred by the passage and the image just flooded into my mind. Incidentally, this painting also fell into a painting scheme of mine - I have been working on a series of "
White Dresses", which I saw as both liberated and restricted, at once individual and impersonal, simultaneously beautiful and sinister. Now it started the companion series "
Black Dress".
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looking back to my paintings inspired by literature, my
Grandma remains my best creation, which was inspired by few scattered descriptions of the protagonist's peasant grandmother at various phases of her long life by Günter Grass in his fantastic novel
The Tin Drum (
Die Blechtrommel) - her many layers of skirts, her peeling potatoes, the heated bricks she used to keep warm, again, underneath her layers of skirts.
Grandma, Oil on Canvas, 40"x30", 2003
Grass's
The Tin Drum also moved me to create another painting with his depiction of nightmarish book burning by the Nazis' -
The Devil's Dance. The archaic scroll with the proclamation of "Faith, Hope, and Love", I hope, echoed the perverse scene in the book.
The Devils' Dance, Oil on Canvas, 30"x48", 2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~
My painting
Blindness, based on José Saramago's eponymous masterpiece, (originally in Portuguese:
Ensaio
sobre a cegueira, meaning Essay on Blindness), didn't depict any particular passage of the book; rather, I tried to capture a sense of displacement and bewilderment.
Blindness, Oil on Canvas, 36"x48", 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Similarly, the atmospheric novel,
The Bells of Bruges (Le Carillonneur) by George Rodenbach, which led me through the unforgettable medieval city Bruges, Belgium, aided with my wonderful memory of meandering through the cobble-stoned narrow streets, propelled me to try to capture the stillness of the city frozen in the past, and underneath its calmness, as in any living place, the unquenchable quest for life's essence. Nothing was more relevant than history.
Bruges, Impression, Oil on Canvas, 24"x30", 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, back to the specific. I responded strongly to a passage in
Europe Central by William T. Vollmann: "Have
you ever seen an injured bird at the seashore? Here come crabs from
nowhere - they wait under the sand - and ring it round, cautiously at
first, before you know it, the first crab has leapt onto the broken wing
and pinched off a morsel. The bird struggles, but here come other
crabs in a rush."
This passage, to me, summarized the helplessness of the Europe during World War II, which, viewed through historical magnifier, the distilled essence of human suffering.
Siege, Oil on Canvas, 18"x24", 2010
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Below is a video compilation of these paintings and their respective inspirations:
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Art · 文化 · Kunst:
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A New Installation/Mixed Media Work Completed
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A Still Life Painting, Two Pears, Completed
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New Painting "Lantern" Completed
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Painting "Surveying" Completed
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Niobe - An Installation
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Unexpected Successes of "Stringed White Dresses - An Installation"
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Stringed White Dresses - The Process of a New Installation
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One More Painting Featuring White Dress
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White Dresses - First Painting Finished in 2011
Grand Canal, Venice
Projection
Waste Land
Traces
A Young Man in Padua
A Young Parisian
Expectant
Boy in Venice
Viennese Boy, Museum Goer
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