A Woman in Gold and Turquoise

Sometimes the simplest look holds more mystery than the vast universe of conceptual spiritualism. Hmm, that was a strange sentence, but one that some have qualified my paintings as such. My favorite reaction by one person was “This is not painting – it is a Pain Thing!”

So, I had this large hare hide, quite symmetrical and with no cuts or holes. The top of the hide had a nice dome shape which made me think about a confine for a profile.

Here is the hide before I started painting on it:

As I mixed some oil colors, I decided to have a woman with a mysterious look. And as the idea of mystery evolved, I decided that part of her face and hair should be covered in gold colour. I had never succeeded to come even close to the colour of gold by mixing oil paint, but sometimes mixing acrylic with oil paint can give surprising effects.

Here is the first phase of the painting:

I needed to use more of the hide surface and also try to give a dynamic, movement feel to her. So I let the evening zephyr blow gently from her right, moving the face and head covers right:

She was looking at me with those foxy eyes, but something was missing. I thought about painting jewelry but that would come out too flat. And she needed a new colour to stand out of the brown, black, white and gold.

Here she is with actual turquoise stones. Her head piece and the one earring give texture and topography to the flat surface:

The final challenge was to cut the matting such that the concept of the dome remains part of the creative decision. The final and framed version is shown at the top of this page.

There is a final line to this story: As I put the frame down to get a hammer and nail, my dog (who follows me everywhere) came to jay down in front of the painting. And after looking at it for a short second, hung his head down and went to sleep!

I could only assume that he too did not like what I painted…..

April 30, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019