This project is an investigation of animal content in contemporary painting through the lens of symbolism and objectification. My goals for this project is to question why animal portraiture is becoming less and less prominent in post-modern painting, and why the use of animals can dangerously boarder on kitsch in modern times.

I will be working on a total of four paintings, two on homemade stretched canvas with dimensions of about 18’x24′, and two on primed canvas board with dimensions of 7’x9′. All of them will depict a separate animal in two ways layered on top of each other. The first layer will show the animal in their “cartoon” form, or in another pop culture reference to represent the anthropomorphistic symbolism that humankind applies to the animal. The second layer with depict the respected animal’s skull as a representation of objectification. Once cropped and combined together, these two layers will act as a landscape instead of figurative portraiture. This action will create an improvised post-modern “environment” for the general subject matter to exist in. On top of this landscape, small generalized silhouettes of the animal will be placed along the abstracted forms in the background to further imply landscape instead of figure work. These paintings will be in oil paint, with glazing and indirect painting elements applied.

Until the end of the quarter, I hope to improve my work by adding extra references and expanded “practice” work/thumbnails to help structure the project and work through problem solving.

Supports: Two handmade stretched canvas, with wooden stretchers and gessoed canvas. Each canvas is primed with a thick and textured gesso, with different colored acrylic underpainting on top. Dimensions: 18’x24′ Canvas board primed with thin, non-textured white gesso. No acrylic underpainting applied. Dimensions: 7’x9′.

Technique: Use of glazing with linseed oil and gamsol, indirect painting and prolonged process. Detail-oriented work will be a focus, and layering of content is essential to the project.

Subject: Use of animals in contemporary painting to convey multiple meanings and ideas

Content/Imagery: Animal portraiture and figurative work. Use of animals in different contexts: as cartoons, as still-life of skulls, and as abstracted and generalized silhouetted forms. Four different animals, one for each painting: Coyote, Deer, Beaver, and Grizzly Bear.

Style/form/scale:  Two larger paintings on stretched canvas, two smaller paintings on canvas board. All “cartoon” layers are expanded to the point of cropping as a form of abstraction, “skull” layers cropped, but not as much as the cartoon layer, this magnification helps transform the forms into landscapes instead of figures. Silhouette forms are small, with multiples for each painting in order to fit into landscape.

Productivity: I hope to complete all cartoon layers by Monday, November 26th. All skull studies will be completed by Friday, November 31st. Detail work, silhouettes and finishing touches will be made over the weekend.

Genre: Still-life, landscape, and portraiture. Abstraction through the use of cropping, distorted color schemes, and brushwork throughout the pieces. Pop-art, impressionism, and stylized realism all have elements throughout composition. The most relevant genres are landscape and stylized realism.

Constraints: Limited color schemes for each painting. Varying size, two panels smaller than the larger, more detailed paintings, with less priming and preparation involved. The two smaller ones are on canvas board to reduce time-consuming prep work before starting the actual painting process.

2 Artist Mentors: Georgia O’Keefe (Practice:Imagery, style, color use and form abstraction) Andy Warhol (Theory: Pop-art, use of kitsch and superficiality within work, commentary about modern times, and human consumerism)

My long range goals are to develop a style and a background in the use of animals in contemporary art. I want to develop a knowledge base of how humans use animals as tools to convey meaning in art, and how they view them within their own own anthropocentric perspective of the world. This will help me develop my own perspective of animals in art, and how to depict this content in a more-informed way through my art in the future.

Current Discussion Question: How does the contemporary Western world depict and use specific animals of North America in post-modern painting?