Lemon on Orange Kimono

The back story: a good painter friend mentioned looking at Diebenkorn, the forms, space, etc. and so I picked up my own book and spent some time looking at the way the color flattened the space, even when there is minimal modeling. I love this idea when it works, the perfect tension of the color and the picture plane, everything pressing outward in dynamic balance, if such a thing is possible. So I tried to set up that situation using a single bright lemon with enough other color and pattern that would cause it all to hang together in that "fresh but inevitable" manner. Regardless of the success of this painting, it is a direction I have been going in for a long time and still find thrilling and natural to my view of the world. Just how to combine it with a mug shot.....how to use the modeled figure with this degree of abstraction. Oy.

Also -- Happy New Year! Thank you everyone for your support and encouragement, I appreciate it enormously.

Jean