| peter maslow: paintings |
Peter Maslow
January 24, 2008
These paintings are part of my Vienna Bunker series, which I have been working on now
for the last six or seven years. They are essentially urban environments, or cityscapes.
They began dealing directly with the apparent architectural and historical incongruity
between various Flak Towers (from WWII) and the neighboring Art Nouveau buildings in
Vienna, Austria. But as they developed they also covered many other different
architectural environments in Central and Eastern European cities. There exists there
an incredible overlay of different architectural (and therefore historical) styles (or forces).
But as the series has developed I realize that much of what I am painting really has as
much to do with my lifelong experience as a New Yorker as with anything else .
The paintings are multifaceted. There are layers of converging forms, passages and
holes, and an overall tension in the picture-plane reminiscent of the urban experience.
So many elements and events coincide here. The city space all at once: a conflagration
of forms, the spirits of the forms, and the building and the street as bullfighter and bull.
Everything in front of you, here and now - and memory, too.
Regardless of subject matter, which arguably only matters to the extent it keeps me
interested in the painting, I am always conscious of dealing with various problems in
painting as a craft. Creating tension within the picture-plane, utilizing 'real' depth (as
opposed to 'false' perspective), weaving forms and layers and colors as both things in
themselves and also valid as peripheral elements in the painting as a whole. Real
experience is too dynamic to treat as something entirely known. There is always
something 'other' involved, always 'behind' or 'beside', or even those unreliable
remembered associations and inherited meanings which so color our looking glasses.
By extension, these paintings also treat with problems inherent in identity, cognition, and
meaning. At the end of the day, however, they should just work. They should feel
resolved. That is the only way I know I am done with a painting.
January 24, 2008
These paintings are part of my Vienna Bunker series, which I have been working on now
for the last six or seven years. They are essentially urban environments, or cityscapes.
They began dealing directly with the apparent architectural and historical incongruity
between various Flak Towers (from WWII) and the neighboring Art Nouveau buildings in
Vienna, Austria. But as they developed they also covered many other different
architectural environments in Central and Eastern European cities. There exists there
an incredible overlay of different architectural (and therefore historical) styles (or forces).
But as the series has developed I realize that much of what I am painting really has as
much to do with my lifelong experience as a New Yorker as with anything else .
The paintings are multifaceted. There are layers of converging forms, passages and
holes, and an overall tension in the picture-plane reminiscent of the urban experience.
So many elements and events coincide here. The city space all at once: a conflagration
of forms, the spirits of the forms, and the building and the street as bullfighter and bull.
Everything in front of you, here and now - and memory, too.
Regardless of subject matter, which arguably only matters to the extent it keeps me
interested in the painting, I am always conscious of dealing with various problems in
painting as a craft. Creating tension within the picture-plane, utilizing 'real' depth (as
opposed to 'false' perspective), weaving forms and layers and colors as both things in
themselves and also valid as peripheral elements in the painting as a whole. Real
experience is too dynamic to treat as something entirely known. There is always
something 'other' involved, always 'behind' or 'beside', or even those unreliable
remembered associations and inherited meanings which so color our looking glasses.
By extension, these paintings also treat with problems inherent in identity, cognition, and
meaning. At the end of the day, however, they should just work. They should feel
resolved. That is the only way I know I am done with a painting.