jody [paints]

Pondering About a New Direction

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 11:00:30 +0100

While painting subway interiors and perspectives in different world cities for a couple of years, people disappeared out of the images I created. I’ve been giving it some thought and the more I look at what I made, the more I feel like I’m done with the solitude that it shows. In all my ‘subways’, there’s one person that draws all the attention. The train in the last painting, the subway in Budapest, Hungary, was empty. And now the desolate warehouse, barrack or whatever it is that I painted recently, shows the same loneliness.
Every time I’m struck by a subject or a view, it appears to be something where light and shadow challenge each other. And where there’s only the suggestion of past liveliness. I guess that’s why I love architectural painting so much. The subject is patient, lonely and vast. Today, when I picked up my sketchbook, I automatically turned towards a building I know very well. This time, it was the Bryant Park Hotel in New York that I tried to make an impression of.

This building has a very special meaning to me. It is a silent, gloomy, lonely, vast presence in the Midtown area. From the first time I saw it I felt a weird connection with it. It’s a beautiful designed building with both Gothic and modern influences, but it seems to give a dark and lonely feeling to those people who stare at it for a while. Like it’s a wise, old person who witnesses the city that changes continuously but stays the same.
The building is called the American Radiator Building, built in 1924 and designed by Raymond Hood en John Howells. The black brick facade refers to coal and the golden stones refer to fire.
American artist Georgia O’Keeffe painted this building way before I got inspired by it - in 1927. It’s called ‘Radiator Building - Night, New York’.

Back in the day, the building was brand new and to O’Keeffe it must have been a grand, modern building. While to me, it’s an old, nostalgic building that makes me curious for the decades of New York fashion and culture it has witnessed.
To get back to the reason I’m writing this blog. My paintings radiate with solitude and I’m done with that. I want to try to bring back the people to the canvas. It’s exciting and they’re not so merciful as buildings. I’m still working on the ideas I have in my mind. Keep you posted.

The Spell Is Broken

Tue, 2 Nov 2010 21:03:24 +0100

More than 3 months later it finally happened. After a long summer in Europe, postponing buying an easel and coming up with other silly excuses not to start painting, it all came together in the end. I couldn’t stand my own cowardly fear of an empty canvas anymore.
For over 2 years no magic happened. Busy job, not really inspired and other dull reasons. I must say, when I finally unpacked my brushes and created a nice little working space in the living room I felt a little bit better. Buying stretchers, nice Belgian linen and the biggest bucket of Gesso I could find definitely warmed me up. When my brush first hit the canvas, the spell was broken.
So here is the first new painting since a long time. I call it ‘Berry and N 4’, because I don’t want to give it a pretentious name. It’s destination for now is the empty wall space above our ‘new’ 70’s dresser/bureau.
Check below for close ups and painting details:

‘Berry and N 4’. Oil on Linen, 26 x 44” (66 x 112 cm)

Bringing Light to an Ugly Barrack

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:52:41 +0200

There is a building on N4th Street and Berry Street that fascinates me ever since I saw it for the first time, a couple of months ago. It’s a super ugly, dark barrack-like thing. But beautiful and mysterious at the same time! No clue what it used to be or what it will be in the near future. I hope it stays like this so that Williamsburg’s flourishing urban art stays on the walls.
To me this building resembles my artistic epicenter, that turned dark and dusty over the last two years of not painting, not even sketching. Time to let the light in!

Since all of my equipment is in the Netherlands, it takes a while before I get it here. I can’t wait to turn this first sketch into a colorful painting!
For now: time to exploooooohr [!] Williamsburg for more interesting industrial architecture.