I first wrote about this piece a few weeks ago, marveling at how it only took me 3 weeks to paint from beginning to end - a labor so brief that it's pretty much unheard of for me for a painting of this size.
I now have high-res, color-corrected images to share. I love this part - being able to show the detail in almost as much accuracy as viewing the piece in person; the grain of the canvas, the little raised strokes from paint thickly applied.
When I finish a piece I'm either exasperated or energized. When it feels like I'm getting close to hitting a wall (the edge of my interest in a series, the near-final crack at an idea, the conclusion of some kind of creative era) I'll be happy to finish the piece -- it's not unlike the dopamine rush of finishing a race -- but I may feel puzzled as to where to go next. The end of this piece felt more like a beginning. Zoomed closer in, it's almost a happy medium between my recent dual, dueling figures and my 2012-2014 hyperrealistic portraits, in which I brought the viewer so close to the skin that it rendered almost abstractly, like a landscape of pockmarked desert. Here, the close crop leaves out context - where that limb goes next, who's with her - and imbues the mystery I seek. The proximity also gives way to a hyper level of detail and brushwork, scratching my eternal itch to render skin and features in a lifelike yet playful, painterly way. I don't have any other medium or large pieces in the works at the moment begging for attention (just two very small studies), so I am free to start fresh and follow this path where it leads me, and it feels good.
This series explores aggression in both broad and specific interpretations of the term. Flush felt appropriate to me as a title, not just because of the magenta flush of blood to the subject's face, but for its other meanings. It can also refer to a kind of emotional catharsis, or a cleansing. In her face, I can see that interpretation. But the term flush is also sometimes used in reference to hunting, to predators driving prey from their cover. In that context, the strained, twisted grapple of our subject and her opponent becomes dark again.
Flush, 24" x 24," oil on canvas. © Megan Van Groll, 2017.
Flush, detail, 24" x 24," oil on canvas. © Megan Van Groll, 2017.
Flush, detail, 24" x 24," oil on canvas. © Megan Van Groll, 2017.