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Back in the Studio again

The last time I was here, before I went to England for a few weeks, I did some preparatory work with acrylic pours and underpainting. I took some of those dried acrylic shapes and collaged them to printmaking paper, marked with the coal-circle shapes:



The next stage with them is to draw into them with India ink and airbrush pigment, as I did with these two:


The one on the right in that picture is the newest one (I've posted pictures of the one on the left before). It's 18" x 16", and it also has collaged bits of printmaking paper in addition to the collaged acrylic skins, because I wanted to cover up some stuff that went wrong, but I didn't want to throw away the entire picture.

I'm starting to let go of the anxiety about these images not relating with absolute directness to the narrative-based work that I am also working on (and which I am exhibiting in a couple of weeks). I am  heartened, actually, by the Rashid Johnson show I saw at Chicago's MCA. There were several very different kinds of work in that show, yet they were all related to the 'family memory and philosphy' themes of his art as a whole.
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