Post»Untitled Conclusivist Painting Analysis

Posted by Steve Or Steven Read on Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 11:09 AM to the Conclusivity Blog



This is a painting completed late last year (2007). A stretched canvas about 5 feet in width, made using only watercolor pencils and wet brushes. Many months later, I still go back and forth about it being horrible or amazing (or somewhere in the middle). I have shown the painting to some friends and artists, with equally mixed, often strong reactions. Even got into a spicy argument with my dealer who attacked it vigorously. Though perhaps I lust for such gray area. Maybe it is brutish, even child-like, and totally out of style, but maybe not. Thematically and/or visually unresolved, but perhaps not. Missed opportunity runs rampant in the clumsy composition and/or usage of materials, but if these choices were all considered... is the random, amateurish look a deceit? Possibly so, but why? Perhaps I have no conclusions about any of these things, but I do know that love to claim outrageous things, and so I have claimed to friends that is the most 'punk' painting which I have seen anywhere recently. Its just a hunch. Seems like the most improbable painting style to consider as punk, but it is the year 2008 after all.