New York state of mind...

I decided to share some images of paintings I did in college, and the years just after. I experimented quite a bit with how I painted and had some wide ranging interests, from plein air to abstract painting. Most of the things I did were somewhere in the middle. Like the painting above, which was painted from life, but obviously had a fairly abstract approach, built upon a color and design scheme.This painting was soon after I graduated from college, sometime in 2000.

This is another painting from the same time. I lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn with 3 other guys, all doing creative work/study. These paintings have a pretty obvious influence of Richard Diebenkorn, but I was also really interested in Wolf Kahn, Joan Mitchell, the impressionists, deKooning, Rembrandt, Bonnard, Vuilalrd…  At the time I did not see any connection between all of these different approaches, but as I look back, I think the most important element they all share is a love of paint and color. They are all expressive in their brushwork and doing interesting things with color relationships. Diebenkorn and the Bay Area figurative painters were working in a way that most excited me, so for a time I was wrapped up in trying to figure out how they put together their images. I wanted to understand what decisions were made about simplifying and designing an image. I did a lot of reaching and did not get near far enough, but it helped shape some of my interests in painting as I moved on.

5 Responses to “New York state of mind”

1. Stephanie Berry says:

   April 9, 2012 at 11:05 am

   Thanks for posting these earlier paintings of yours. I especially love these figure ones. So different than what you do today but the landscapes have a familiar thread somehow.
2. Dan Corey says:

   April 9, 2012 at 11:16 am

   Great journal entries Colin. I really appreciate you sharing this older work and insight into your influences. Thanks
3. John a says:

   April 10, 2012 at 6:39 am

   With a daughter at risd, I love reading this stuff
4. Dave Miner says:

   April 10, 2012 at 3:32 pm

   Your current work shows an interest in the behavior of light in a way that these do not. Great feeling for strong color is a constant throughout. Thanks for posting.
5. Anonimius says:

   April 22, 2012 at 9:02 am

   Hey Colin — I love these two. They don’t try to “correct” for conventional views. They’re sort of like puzzles with their own intrinsic logic. I remember when you painted those farmhouses and the sides of the buildings had curvature and distorted with change of “height”, similar to how your recent painting of the fire truck warps with distance from the conventional center. Jazzy and intriguing.