Gouache

I have been working at trying to use Gouache paints effectively. I am happy with this one. The medium requires me to slow down, and really arrive at the colors that are in mind.

clumsy and graceful

Preview Massachusetts Article, by Laura Holland, November 2010.

Float and Stay On:
Sean Greene sees the light in skateboard moves and color interaction


Attempts to convey an essential experience of light animate Sean Greene’s paintings, coupling abstracted form with exuberant color and connecting calculated austerity with intuitive flow. “I was going after the sensation of light and understanding how it works in our world,” he says.
Greene began by strategically observing rectangles of light streaming in through a window and then reducing that visual information to its underlying geometry. As he explains, “I was playing with rectangles and parallelograms, creating what I call ‘light forms,’ and getting deeply engrossed in the study of color.” He was not interested in a literal depiction but in the pulsating impression of light and color, evoking an emotional content or a contemplative state.
“We’re blasted with visual information that most of the time wants to sell us something,” he points out. “My goal is not to sell anything, but to help people towards a meditative consciousness, for an awareness of looking at art that then extends out into the world.” He hopes people will walk away from his paintings with a heightened perceptual awareness, thinking, “Wow! Look at that light!” while gazing around their own worlds.
At first, he made paintings that seem monochromatic, but slowly reveal very slight, very subtle differences in color saturation. To achieve these small variations, he used syringes to precisely measure and mix color in mathematical increments. But he found very few people could commit enough time to recognize such super subtleties. He says, “You almost had to live with the work to ‘get it.’ I wanted to give people more entryways into my work and bring them along with my joy in color and light.”
So he increased color contrast and added curves to the composition. In the “Typograph” series, ribbons of saturated color twist against a gray background, to create an effect of layers through variations in intensity. Greene still used syringes to meticulously measure more or less of the background gray into the colored pigments, but the forms themselves begin to dance.
“It’s very basic stuff: figure; ground,” he demurs. The closer the figure is in color to the background, the more it recedes. The greater the difference between figure and ground, the more the figure pops forward. Describing his methodical approach he says, “I thought, if I do it in mathematical increments, it will always work…and it worked up to a point, until I started using multiple colors.” Then, he discovered, doing the math didn’t account for different pigment strengths or the complexity of color interactions.
“Typograph Seven” has strands of three different hues, which, he says, “created all sorts of complications, leading me to question the whole mathematical part of color calibration.” So he abandoned formulas to embrace a more intuitive approach. “It brought me to creating an atmospheric, spatial experience with colors drawing paths through an ambiguous space,” he continues. “These curved forms opened so many doors to ways of describing space, and then space, in turn, related to how we experience light.” He caused further complications by changing the neutral gray background to a more assertive dark red in the “Calligraph” series and creating, with contrastive color, complex overlapping forms.
These forms, he says, start out intuitively, influenced by “a major force in my life, which is skateboarding.” Greene also recalls that his initial attraction to art started with seeing graffiti spilling over the walls of New York, in “an explosion of colors and shapes, words I couldn’t read…it was visually so exciting.” He sees, in retrospect, that the fragmented letter forms in both “Typographs” and “Calligraphs” hark back to graffiti. “I don’t see my work as ‘skateboard painting,’” he emphasizes. However, the swooping lines convey a sensation of weaving and floating, sinking and swirling, and, as Greene explains, the rhythm of skateboarding gives him access to playfully improvise with form and flowing movement in space.
Moving along from monochromatic paintings to the austere gray “Typographs” to deep-red grounded “Calligraphs,” Greene’s latest paintings take a giant leap into fields of foreground color. “Suggestions” intermingle figure and ground with forms that spill off the edge of the canvas. Has also started titling work, as he says, “to give people more access to what I’m doing.” The titles don’t explain, but come from words or phrases with some resonance. “They suggest something else and lead me to another idea,” he says. “ ‘Try Letting Go’ –well, that’s advice I give myself.” Another painting draws its title, “Float and Stay On,” from his comment to a fellow skateboarder at the flow bowl in the Northampton Skate Park.
In the “Calligraphs,” the red ground surrounds and contains foreground images. But in the most recent paintings, he says, “I started letting things go…and they go right off the edges.” The paintings become a window into a world where bands of light extend beyond what our eyes can see. This canvas as a metaphor for a window, notes Greene, is traditional Renaissance view of painting, and this idea also loops back, in reverse, to his earlier studies attempting to capture and convey the effects of light entering through a window into the viewer’s space.
The forms painted on an outdoor mural not only go off the edge but also around the corner (on two walls outside Bread Euphoria in Haydenville). This mural has the red ground of the “Calligraphs,” but like the “Suggestions,” its lines of color swoop to the edge. It’s a brilliant splash of color snuggled among the weathered wood of the building. A row of blue-glazed pots and a spiraling green hose extend the colors and flowing lines into the environment. Greene notes that the cinderblock surface, along with the scale (eight by twenty-six feet), posed challenges, as did a drainpipe, which he carefully painted over as part of the ebb and flow of color. A recessed doorway, electrical wires, and overflow pipes are similarly swept into the overall design.
Greene brushes aside some cobwebs and twists the knob on the door. “I really like the way I can literally enter the space of the painting,” he says as he steps inside, turning the traditional “window” of the painting into an entryway for perception.

Washington City Paper blog : nice!

check it out here

20x200 edition of work in Skateboarding Side Effects

If you have just seen the Skateboarding Side Effects Show in Rosslyn, One of the paintings is available as an archival print reproduction at 20x200, a wonderful group who invites artists to do affordable limited editions in the company of many great artists. The prints start at 20 dollars for 8 x 10 inch and increase according to size. Check it out!

Skateboarding Side Effects

Skateboarding Side Effects is an astounding show, I am so proud to be in it. Cynthia Connolly really took the idea of looking at how skateboarders see the world differently and put together a show of exquisite, personal responses to the human experience from the point of view of skateboarders in a way that has not been seen before. Through November 28. more

ready for the Artisphere

On Monday I am driving down to Arlington, VA with a big box on the roof of the car. I am excited to be showing 3 paintings, and 3 photo montages in a group show curated by Cynthia Connolly called Skateboarding Side Effects, a multi media show of artists who all have been influenced by their involvement in skateboarding. The nice thing about this show is that I don't think you can really call any of it "skater art". Or, it really expands what we normally think of. Reception 10/14/10. Terrace Gallery at the Artisphere.

The Artisphere is a brand new art space, that is formerly the home of the Newseum (relocated to the DC Mall). There are all sorts of events celebrating the space and the exhibitions. more

Matt Marek 8/2010

20 x 200 edition

check out the archival print reproduction at 20 x 200. These have a beautiful print quality, and color accuracy. The price starts at $20 for small ones(8 x 10). Be sure to browse through the other available work, they do a lot of great prints in a wide variety.

DC

Flo Bowl illustrator drawing

wünderarts OUT OF SIGHT

Out of Sight

18 artists from near and far selected to participate by guest curator Sean Greene
June 27 - Augut 30, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 27, 2009, 6-9 pm

wünderarts OUT OF SIGHT exhibition offers cool respite from summer heat

wünderarts is pleased to announce the OUT OF SIGHT, an exhibition of abstract art without pretension, featuring eighteen artists from near and far brought
together by guest curator and wünderartist Sean Greene.

The term abstract art has developed a certain connotation over the
years of art that is inaccessible to anyone who is not educated on the
subject. OUT OF SIGHT puts an end to that idea with works of art
accessible to anyone with open eyes and an open mind. Greene says of
the show, "If you can admire a car or a purse or the design of a cell
phone, you can find an abstract painting that you admire equally and
perhaps more. When you admire those things, you are admiring abstract
forms, lines, colors, shapes and textures; you have an emotional
response to something that represents only itself."

Referring to the artists selected for the show Greene adds,
"Essentially, this is a dream show for me, these are all artists making
work that I want my work to be hung next to, these are artists I want
to talk about making art with." The artists featured are Chris Duncan,
Heather Kasunick, Kathranne Knight, Sean Greene, Jeanette Cole, EJ
Hauser, Joseph Hart, Jodi Buonanno, Young Min Moon, Clint Jukkala, Gary
Petersen, Jack Greene, John Ortiz, Matt Phillips, Jieun Shin, Mathias
Sias, Barbara Neulinger, and Ali Osborne.

uncle Jack

My uncle Jack Greene has been making art for 55 years. He has a show up on Martha's Vineyard of work from the 70's. Check out slide show and video here.

untitled piece on paper. 2008. approx. 10 x 14 inches.

enormous champions

Jordan Provost and Jason Wong have a sneak peak feature in Design Sponge(link).
They are great folks and artists, and make stuff under the name enormous champion.
They have one of my paintings up on their walls in this feature of their beautiful home.

Two Paintings on view in Brooklyn

Two paintings on view at Jack the Pelican in a group show called Old School
through April 26. (link)
487 Driggs between N 9th and 10th in Williamsburg Brooklyn.
Friday through Monday 12-6pm.

This is named after a song by the group Chessie. I don't know what it means to them, but I like letting that phrase roll around in my head and allowing it to evolve from one made up meaning to another. http://www.myspace.com/chessie I listen in the studio quite a lot --for a couple of years now.

Mr. Jeff Grosso illustrates the sweeper.

...................A friend asked me what a sweeper was, I think this photo defines it perfectly. (The results on Google images are very disappointing, unless you like cleaning equipment.) In the days before caring, a bad ass ripper could clear anything unwanted off the platform of their ramp with a maneuver like this. What a wonderful thing-- if you have ever stuck one, even on a two foot mini ramp, you know how good it feels. A leap of faith.

calligraph4

54 x 54 inches, 2008

Hampden Gallery

Four new paintings will be on view at UMass Amherst's Hampden Studio Gallery September 14 to October 19, 2008. Here is a link for a blurb and directions:
http://www.umass.edu/fac/hampden/about.html
It is a little hard to find.
In neighboring galleries will be paintings by Petula Bloomfield and sculpture by Stephen Foley. The opening will be Thursday September 18, 5-7 pm. Please come if you are around.

Calligraph 3

54 x 48 inches 2008

Lines

The purpose of this blog is to pursue some thoughts and ideas about skateboarding and its influence on my paintings. The paintings are not about skateboarding, but the connection has appeared in my work, and I am enjoying the impact immensely. It affords me a measure of play in the studio, as if I have found a way to skate while working on a serious endeavor.

In its essence, skateboarding is not a sport, but an art for individuals and collectives. It transforms walls, handrails, curbs and empty swimming pools into possibilities. These seemingly mundane objects are describers and delineators of space- skateable terrains that provide skaters with opportunities for finding lines – graceful, expressive ways through the built environment.

Creativity is essential in finding a good line. A skater must imagine what is possible, and then charge, follow impulses, respond, adjust and flow. A good line is fluid and allows a skater to maintain or accumulate speed, giving opportunities to use the elements of a space, missing as few of the objects as possible. In the end, a good line expresses the skater’s personality, style, attitude and unique energy. Watching skate videos, without interviews, one can identify different attitudes and personalities of skaters through their expression of lines. A classic comparison is Duane Peters’ aggressive, unplanned, impulsive runs to Tony Hawk’s controlled, technical runs. One emphasizes expression, the other technique. Both are amazing in their own ways, and both accurately depict these skaters personalities. Painters, also express their values through what they are doing and not doing on a canvas. Who they are comes through the work, they are showing you what is important to them.

Through a process of exploring color and light and spatial illusion, I have developed forms that carve through an unknown space and lead the eye around the flat surface of a canvas. The canvas is the terrain and space that I am finding lines on and through. As I carve these forms into ambiguous space, I am after fluidity and a dynamic that grabs viewers and pulls them in. I am trying to find the possibilities and limits of the canvas and its interior. While painting the forms, I am constantly asking myself where to go, whether to curve or angle, advance or recede and when to stop a form. Every form has a unique quality with varying degrees and combinations of speed, grace and agression. The canvas is the bowl or the street scene. The forms are the actions and the ways through the space.

Allowing skateboardings' influence into my work has given my studio activities new life and energy, much like it began to do for my life as a kid in 1985 when I got my first proper skateboard. Growing older and perhaps less daring, my approach toward skateboarding is more or less being minimized to essences: gliding, turning, and accumulating speed. Having been raised on backyard mini ramps and curbs, I feel so lucky to now have a concrete bowl just three miles from home. It is the perfect way to explore these essences and then head to the studio with loads of adrenaline. In the bowl or studio, I seek my limits-- limits of ability, knowledge, stamina and fear. When I can identify those limits, I push beyond them, while trying to maintain a degree of control. The trick is staying on the board.

Mike Cohen from SF finding his lines. Click on photo to enlarge.