Outside/Inside
 

Oil on linen, 42" x 50"

Here's a double portrait of my brother that I finished a couple of months ago. Because there are many layers of meanings in it, I considered posting it in the "figuratives" section, but in the end I decided it belonged here because it is primarily a portrait. The figure in the background, leaning against the window, is a young version of my brother at about age 20. The figure in the foreground is, obviously, my brother as he is now. The setting is his island in Maine, in the lighthouse tower.

Instead of going on about what I tried to say in this portrait, I would very much like to hear what, if anything, it conveys to you.

More details.

Lovely work, Alex. The clarity and the quality of the light is wonderful. The double portrait of a single person in an allegory works very well indeed. There is no doubt about it not being a straightforward portrait of two different people. There is a definite feeling of the artist setting memories in physical paint, as well a organising ideas and responses to those memories in a deliberated on composition. The younger version of your brother feels like the past with the present layered on top without it obstructing the past. The relationship of the compositional elements as well as the younger and older versions of your brother are very thoughtfully worked out so that both the ideas and the painting's objects, colours and shapes work very harmoniously.

A wonderful painting.

(I think that you could push these allegorical works even further by focusing on the actual paint itself and the beauty and meaning in the abstract qualities of oil paint i.e the unexpected and undefined feelings of longing or glory or sadness etc. that come across in the paint marks as you are working out the drawing or composition. In other words allow more of the paint marks you respond to excitedly to remain (even though you might not think other people would like them as well as you) and perhaps allow more variety in the paint marks. In other words, it is a bit like riding a horse without a bit. It feels completely wrong and out of control if you have been riding with a bit for ages, but it is so rewarding to trust the horse and allow for its personality and movement and wildness to have some freedom - the same with letting the paint go and lead you a little, and then you work with where it takes you. You then have more of an equal relationship with the paint, rather than having it submit to ideas you already are master of.)

Alex,
I like the puzzle you set up and I bet that you have had long conversations with your brother during the painting process.

I like the many mirror images in the windows that could inspire to reflections about a persons life.

When you are young you want to grow up and get into something, and when that happens you may look into the mirror of your soul and want to be young again, because you might want to do things otherwise and so on.

It's a great painting and more complex than I like to think of. ;)

Thank you for showing it.

This is fabulous, Alex!
 

I just adore this painting. Wow.

So, here's what came up for me (as I relate it to my own experience of youth vs. mid life); As a twenty year old there is a yearning to "find the light" (symbolized by the lighthouse). The young man is looking in from outside. As a more mature adult, he has become part of the light, realized that he is now and always was a part of the light. Now he looks out on all there is.

Just wonderful!

Alex:
Great!
http://www.artsheaven.com/caspar-dav...s-of-life.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_Life

This is absolutely wonderful! There are so many layers to it, I feel like I could look at it for hours and discover new questions and meaning in it.

Thank you all for responding!

I think you all mentioned major themes I was exploring in this. But you came up with some specific metaphors that I hadn't thought of. Maybe they were at the back of my mind, but not articulated. For me, there is nothing so deadly to creativity than thinking out every last detail intellectually before starting to paint. I only knew it had to be a certain way, in a certain setting, and then the idea developed intuitively as I was working it out and even while I was painting it.

Allan, your description of youth vs. middle age is very much what I was thinking of when I first started thinking about this. In fact, it is behind the whole painting. Although I hear my female friends talk about mid-life, there is something peculiar to a man's life which I wanted to express here. Maybe it is a set of emotions, subtly (or not so subtly) different from women's feelings.

Molly, it is interesting to hear your viewpoint. I was aware of the symbolism of the lighthouse when I thought of it as a setting, but the actual words "light" and "enlightenment" did not occur to me. I was thinking of elevated perspectives and the tower as a symbol of masculinity. But what you say is absolutely true and very interesting. It is also a positive spin on the youth-midlife theme. Do women experience midlife differently? I feel very much as you describe, and that makes me wonder whether the overlaying of my experiences on my brother's experiences produces another "layer," so to speak.

SB, thank you for the link. No words needed. (I wonder why I talk so much!)

Mary Ann, thank you! If someone wants to keep looking at a painting, that makes me very happy.

Thomasin, thanks for all you said. I like your thoughts. The layers of glass were both fun and challenging to use because they had several different functions:
1) linking layers by allowing one to see through them
2) separating layers
3) reflecting things inside and outside

As usual you brought up some good points about the painting process. Although the painting is quite large and looks more painterly in real life, you are right that it is more "controlled" than usual. I think I felt this way from the beginning of the process, because the lighthouse was so difficult to get right with all its angles, windows, reflections, and just the general perspective of a ten-sided tower. I was also very conscious of correcting for distortion. Perspective issues are very important to me and it bugs me when something looks a little off. (It doesn't have to be painted meticulously, it just has to be correctly spaced and structurally correct.) There were so many elements to put together from disparate sources that the actual process of painting i.e. the brushstrokes, the feeling, etc., broke into sections more than being an entire whole, as it would have been if I were looking at a complete scene and responding to it. In other words, the things you are referring to happened while i was painting the two figures and the area immediately around them, and the water and scene behind him, etc., because that is the way I worked on the painting. I was aware that the whole panting had a more controlled feeling than usual. This "riding without a bit" is something I have been working on for years. I would not want to suddenly let go, but rather let go gradually. If I am to do more portraits that have these complex elements I'll be working towards this goal.

Alex, what a beautiful painting! I love everything about it, especially your brothers (older version) reflective look. I noticed the two sailboats in the distance and it evoked a sens of something that has passed. To me it seems your brother couldn't wait to grow up into manhood and now he seems to be missing something. He is not really looking out at the scenery but seems to look at something within. Maybe reflecting on his life?

What was your brother's reaction to the painting. Did you tell him what you had in mind before he posed? It's really a great piece....

http://lightlounge.org/articles/outside/index.html

http://english.hanban.edu.cn/english/33934.htm

"When I grew up,


Homesickness was a small tomb,


With me outside, and my mother inside; "

This is one of the most-famous poems written by Yu Guangzhong, a renowned writer from Taiwan. Entitled "Homesickness", the oft-quoted poem vividly depicts the flesh and blood relations between people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.


http://images.google.com/images?um=1...=Search+Images

Enzie, I like your interpretation very much. I was definitely thinking about inner and outer worlds, about extraversion and introversion, and how they correspond to different periods in life as well as different personality orientations. Your observation that he is not really looking at the view but reflecting on something within is exactly what I wanted to show so I am glad I got it across.

My brother does really like the painting. He calls it "metaphysical." I did tell him what I was thinking of, and he helped me put it together by posing and getting photo references, etc. Although I tried to explain my ideas, I'm not sure I totally got it across to him, but that's usually the way when you have an idea in your mind and your attempts to communicate it are not that great because it can't really be described except in the form of the painting itself

SB, thank you again for the other links. The first one uncannily echoes the "metaphysical" theme. What is inside and what is outside are all part of the same thing. The microcosm and macrocosm are structurally the same. The inner world is really so much greater than us and yet it can be contained in our mind. The second link is also relevant. We have many losses and separations as we grow older, and more chance to reflect on them. The interesting thing is that he is actually on an island, looking at the mainland.

Thanks Alex! I love to hear what the ideas of the artist are when they are developing a painting.

Alexandra -
The painting is absolutely gorgeous, but I had quite a different initial interpretation of it before I read that it was a double portrait.

Seeing the similarity in the two, I first assumed it was a father/son portrait. Thinking perhaps the father is guarded (in an iron cage) and does not let anyone get close to him, including the son who is pressed against the glass and longing to get in. The father pays no attention to his gesturing as he is deep in thought about other things. They spend a lot of time together, but are not close.

Ok, I know this is WAY off - but it's interesting how different people can read such different meaning into the same painting. Interpretation is an interesting topic.

Now that I know they are of the same person, of course that changes my entire view of the painting.

Wow, Heidi, that it NOT way off at all! I am so blown away by this. In a way, it is about a father and son. One of my initial thoughts for the painting was to show the effect of our family circumstances on my brother. (I won't go into that here, but you could read about our family on the internet in relation to my brother's film, My Architect.) My brother and I experienced similar situations as children growing up in our family and so this painting is partially about me, too--as all art is about the artist. I was trying to show the feeling of being left on the outside, "wanting in" to your family, as a young person. Then, when you are older, realizing that you are in, just by the strength of your own achievements and the validation of yourself. No one can prevent you from being who you are and accepting your rightful place in the world, whatever that may be. The young man is looking in on his older self--but in a way, he has become the father.

Thanks for that insight, Heidi.

Alex,
I

[QUOTE=Carlos Ygoa]Alex,
and the lighthouse...it

Alex, I am also very late in commenting. Normally I try to post straight away, but when, like in this case, I miss out on that, it is difficult to add anything as all the posts are so well articulated.
I have the utmost admiration for tackling all the members of your family in portraits as you did. We have seen your father, your mother, your husband and children, and now your brother. With each of them things seem to get deeper and deeper.

In fact I am late in adding this post because I somehow sense that this works are there because you just NEED to do them, almost regardless of the result, and though you generously share your process with us, in fact I find them so personal and honest that I do not dare to judge them.
As you said, you have an idea which you can only convey in painting and you explore it until very deep down. Though the scene is set in an open space one has the feeling that actually we are somewhere within, in another dimension, an internal one, where the space turns into an illusion as soon as we learn that the time is an illusion too.
I love this painting, I find it so intense that at this point if you went on and painted over the younger figure the strenght of its former presence could still be felt.
Ilaria

Alex,
I was very impressed when I first saw this painting in your studio. First, the composition and the color harmony struck me. Then all the layers of symbolism, I wouldn't try to find the exact interpretation, but all those deep themes are present : inside/outside, reflection, the ages of life... etc...
I think this painting have some precise meanings for you and your brother, and for the viewers like us, we can feel and guess. The richness of the possible interpretation is evident, and it's great also to feel it, and not to explain everything with words ( sometimes it will lose something if it's explained with too much rationalism...)

Dear Alex,

This really a spectacular painting, on every level. I really respect your delight in tackling such complexity!

Thank you Carlos, Mary Ann (again), Ilaria and Marina!

Carlos, I'm happy to tell you--you can take the foot out of your mouth. You are right on with the age. It IS neat to have a lighthouse. I enjoy it vicariously.

But, Mary Ann, thank you for pointing out those symbolic meanings of the lighthouse. They are all relevant, I think.


Carlos, Marina and Ilaria--you expressed a certain hesitancy about going on too long with--or delving too deeply into--various interpretations, partly because other people have already come up with a lot, and because as you all said it's not really necessary to know what the artist intended, exactly. Some meanings are personal, but my hope is that the general ideas will be communicated anyway, and that the painting will say something to someone even if they know nothing of the person in this portrait. I think all artists want this to happen when people see their work.

I agree that it is sometimes even detrimental to try to put everything into words. I often try, but at the same time I enjoy the mystery of a painting that cannot be described verbally. If I can impart a little of that mystery I'm happy!

Ilaria, I actually did consider whether I should leave the earlier figure of my brother in the painting! At the time I was painting this I was reading about how Andrew Wyeth would start with an idea involving a person, object or event, and after many studies, would end up eliminating that original element from the final work even though the painting was still about that person or thing or event. I thought seriously about whether the younger figure was necessary. But in the end I decided to keep it because it truly added something. Of course not everyone would agree, but that's what I felt at the time.

Anyway, thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I deeply appreciate them, especially coming from people whose work I admire tremendously.

Chris, I'm sorry I just missed your comments as I was responding to the previous ones. Thank you so much! Yes, I do enjoy complexity. But I also like simplicity. The challenge I think it not going too far with complexity and trying to synthesize it into an overall simplicity. I'm not sure I'm there yet, but are we ever "there?"

Apart from being a fabulous painting, it has evoked some strange reactions....

There is such a feeling of space and air outside the lighthouse, and everyone but the subject is in the out-of-doors. It almost makes his placement seem claustrophobic and contained, even though he's behind glass and has such a panoramic view.

I feel it's as if he has found himself in middle age in a "box" so to speak, and though the setting is so beautiful, he's cut off from actually enjoying and participating in the environment. He seems so focused on his responsibility as the watchman, he's not aware of how beautiful the surround is. And so, his younger, more carefree self is inviting him to re-connect with the world, but it remains to be seen if he will notice the invitation.

So, as these exercises are, I've told you more about me than him. Thanks, Dr. Tyng.

(It's a wonderful painting.)

Fascinating interpretation, Tom, and thanks for sharing your personal associations. I didn't think of the young figure in that role of inviting him to come out from behind the glass, but it fits very well. I like its positive message.

I can't tell you how interesting it has been to read your reaction (and others' reactions) to this painting. When I was planning it and painting it, I tried not to over-think it; I just knew it should be a certain way, and things started to fall into place. There were so many things in my mind but I didn't want to intellectualize, just express them through the paint.

This amazing painting...

It has really been a delight to read everyone's responses.

Some years ago, I bought a painting from one of my teachers, Dan Goozee (fabulous draftsman). His feeling is that a painting is never complete until it is viewed. How strongly this thread supports that belief!

Sorry to be so late on here -
I saw this painting in Alex's studio and it grabbed my attention (and my admiration) just as it has for all who have commented here. What speaks to me is the impatience of the younger figure and the gravity and introspection of the older one

As usual, I am so inspired by your intelligent and thoughtful figurative work, Alex. It's not easy to construct a visual that conveys psychological complexity in the portrait genre. I really appreciate your strong work.

Thanks for repeating that great thought, Chris! I'm honored that you think this painting is a good example of it.

Linda, thanks so much! After the PSA conference some of the artists stayed on in Philadelphia and Linda was one of them who came over to my studio. I admit I was more than a little nervous having my work looked over by so many top calibre artists.

Chris and Linda, your appreciation means a lot.

Beautiful Painting, Alex! On the technical side, I love your brushwork and description of what you see.

On the subjective side, without knowing the personal history behind the painting, I would see youth-age contrast with a description of attitudes correlating to each time of life. I would wonder about seeing through the figures - are they ghosts? In the mind's eye?

Nancy Bea, thanks for looking in! I always look forward to your unique insight. I like the way you point out the broad conceptual issues behind the portrait. Probably one reason why you and I have such long conversations is that we're constantly seeing dualities and contradictions (or apparent contradictions). Now that you point them out, I see that they are indeed woven into the making of this painting.

And I'm so relieved it's not kitschy :exclamati

Julie, thanks, I appreciate hearing your reaction. The contrast between youth and middle age was definitely in my mind, and also the continuity of life between those times. You mention the effect of "seeing through" the figures. I was wondering whether anyone would notice, i.e. whether my attempt at painting this was at all effective. There are a lot of reflections of coastline in the different layers and angles of glass, plus coastline that is actually viewed through the glass, and I was trying to paint them in an ambiguous way so that the young figure would almost become transparent, as if his time layer was not quite solid.

I'm in awe of how beautifully this is painted!

I feel a little self conscious giving you my impression of this, because it seems so personal. I will give it a try though. Here's what comes to my mind...

The middle aged man is turning his back on his younger self or dreams in some way. The older seems sorrowful and maybe feels he's trapped or has shut himself off. The younger man whose spirit is of course still within him, but shut out, is trying to wake him up in a sense to the beautiful world with it's opportunities all around him.

Christy, thank you! I really appreciate your comments. It's true that the portrait has a personal meaning but it was my hope that it would say something to people in general and not just be obtuse, or worse, meaningless. The things you see it in are things I wasn't thinking of consciously, but now that you mention them, I can see how they can fit. It's so interesting to hear about unintentional meanings because, in a way, this portrait is not just of my brother, but also of universal feelings and life experiences that I'm trying to express through my painting of him. I suppose all portraits are like that to varying degrees.

Alexandra, when I say personal I really mean for me, and that is why I felt a little self conscious talking about it. It's richly layered with meaning for me, without even knowing what it all means to you. I love that it could mean many different things. It's mystery is what makes it so intriguing.

I love this painting, and was fortunate enough to see the original.

I especially appreciate that there's a story and a mystery to it all, that there's a narrative. It's not just your typical "here's Joe" kind of portrait. Kudos to you, Alex!

Christy, the fact that it has a personal meaning for you is, to me, an encouraging sign. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.

Michele, thank you so much! It has been incredible reading other people's reactions to the "story" aspect. Each person has his or her own associations which are both personal and universal. When I painted it I had no idea what to expect--I only knew what I wanted to say, and even that was only half-conscious. So this has been fascinating to read!

I enjoyed seeing your work in person, too, at the PBA seminar. There's something about seeing the brush marks that changes ones perception of a painting. The large portrait of the executive by the window with the clock in the background sticks in my mind particularly.