Nebulous

Binary jellyfish loading... 90% complete.

Day 310: Binary Jellyfish

I’ve never looked at dots/patterns in a painting the same after seeing some of Ross Bleckner’s work. VeriSign used to have a piece up in the second story lobby which surprised and delighted me to no end. I used to ogle it when we’d sneak up to the engineer’s lounge to use their fancy coffee machine. Then Bravo’s Work of Art Season 2 casting call was held in a gallery exhibiting some of his work- huge fabulous pieces in an exhibition titled “Ross Bleckner paints like Freddie Mercury sings” and it was all I could do to speak to the portfolio reviewers and not drift off into humbled stare-silence. While I tend to find myself drawn to realist subject matter (like cityscapes) most of the time, there’s something so free and open about abstract work.

Today’s piece is a color study using only gray, white and slate blue on 16” x 20” canvas. As I laid out rows of dots, it began to feel like some kind of digital representation of a jellyfish, floating and blinking and loading into virtual existence in the dark blue brain of a computer somewhere, so I finished it off with a white round flourish up top. Even though it’s subtle and has little contrast, I like looking at it next to yesterday’s piece in my studio.