More of pictures showing, less of words describing:
After painting the black lines on ‘1, 2, 3, 4, ‘ I found that I had taken out about 99.99% more black paint out than I’d needed (above, left), so I tried to think of something to do with it. I found that I also had a canvas in my room which I’d started another project on, years earlier, which had been halted with a canvas roughly 1/3 covered in black (above, right).
So I took a 1″ brush and painted on the black paint, covering the remainder of the canvas. Since the black that had been on the canvas was in long, even, straight strokes, I tried to contrast, texturally, with short, curved, messy strokes – and to overlap the two somewhat.
The next step, days later, was to draw on the partially obscured face with a black Sharpie. The painting is black on black on black, so in normal room lighting it appears to be a blank, black canvas from many angles. In bright lighting and from certain angles, the actual features are visible. The image above has been adjusted in Photoshop to bring out the face and the textures and variations in the black. The image below is a lot closer to the actual appearance of the piece, though angles and lighting make a big difference and if possible I recommend seeing it in person to really “see” it.
The finished painting, known as ‘self portrait re: 2007’ is now available for purchase at wretchedcreature.com. Due to a close relationship between the two works, this painting comes with a copy of Worth 1k — Volume 2, the poetry journal I wrote in 2007. (Please visit Modern Evil Press for details on the book, and to see a preview of it.)
