Stand

Stand is the product of gravity and chance.  After priming the canvas in a wash of cerulean blue, I used an eyedropper filled with indigo ink to randomly drip lines across the primed surface.  Each drip line is unique based on how much ink is released at a particular angle, which influences its speed, and width.  The resulting gridwork offers a tapestry of unconscious shapes and patterns containing unlimited compositional opportunities.

After finalizing the color palette I wanted to use, I decided to simply start painting without any compositional idea in mind.  The individual shapes often suggested ideas, but most of them did not survive weeks of trial and error.  Finally, I spent a lot of time turning the canvas in 90 degree intervals to see if anything caught my eye strong enough to hold my imagination.  The large triangular form at the bottom of the canvas jumped out at me one day as a strong negative space.  I had not seen it that way before.  Seeing it this way suggested straddling legs.  Confident legs!  From there, I began to see the mid-section of an abstract human figure.  Not in a literal, accurate way; but still suggestive enough to keep the orientation vertical and posed.

If you turn the painting 90 degrees, you might see an abstract stream or the frenetic grid of a congested city.  Maybe this painting is meant to be turned after so much time in one position.  Which means there are four possible paintings here instead of just one.