In Progress: Cleft

"Cleft"
30"H by 20"W on Silver Mylar
(click for enlargement)

This was started last night at Kaleid's Two-Buck Tuesdays, where I like to paint live in front of people. Unlike the last two paintings I did while I was at that event, this one isn't even close to being done, because as I got more involved with the painting of it, I realized that I really needed to treat this carefully and not just jot it down as a sketch as I did with the last two.

Lately I've been doing quite a lot with the shoes, and it's not that I'm less infatuated with them, but I think my attraction to them might be more about gendered objects and the concept of what is appropriate in masculine and feminine roles.  The notion that an inanimate object can be assigned a gender is intriguing to me because it can leave a lot of room to play with innuendo and still remain comfortably within the genre of "still life." Above, in the painting "Cleft," we're looking at an ordinary garden hose bisecting a shiny purple bow. What it means isn't nearly as important as what the viewer believes it represents.