Thursday, January 22, 2009

Hexagon Block Portraits (I)


A few years back, I was feeling frustrated about how many of my (abstract) paintings were coming out poorly. The process I was using - layering poured house paint in layers of gradually increasing thickness - made it almost impossible to correct mistakes or salvage a painting that had veered in a direction I became unhappy with. I was upset about the waste of time and materials and I began looking for a more flexible method.

I remembered a toy I played with a child. It was a mosaic of wooden cubes that were painted differently on each side, just like this one. I remembered how much I enjoyed exploring different compositions without having to commit to any of them and how the materials could be reused as many times as I liked.

I decided to create a set of blocks for myself, but with more pictorial versatility than the simple colored blocks I'd played with as a child. I chose a hexagonal prism block because its six sides allow more possible combinations (without painting on more than one side of the block) than a square (possibly the most). I grouped a number of the blocks (each about four inches across, I think) into honey-comb arrangements and painted loose, free-form compositions across them, concentrating on getting a variety of colors and shades as well as some areas of illusory depth. The groups were then dispersed and used as pieces to an open-ended puzzle.

In a few cases I painted not an abstract composition on the grouping, but a realistic self portrait, hoping these recognizable elements might act as binding agents for what I expected would otherwise be very loosely representational pictures.

This was right around the time that my friend Maggie gave me the most amazing art book ever, so with my new toys laid out around me on my rug, I set to work on a series of self portraits.

This is the first one.

10 comments:

Thomas Herpich said...

It's been so long, I totally forgot about these... these were great. I'm all eager to see the next posts...

Peter Herpich said...

Yeah, not to toot my own, but those were the coolest most interesting and successful things I ever did. Couldn't sustain it though - things were a pain to store and cutting thousands of perfect hexagon blocks is neither cheap nor easy.

If you'll recall, I tried to get back into it and bought many many cheap little plastic blocks, which was a total f*ing bust.

Thomas Herpich said...

oh yeah... I forgot about that too.

Kent said...

I love this, and hope to see more.
I've noticed you've made some other self portraits through out your work. Is there a reason for sticking with self portraiture? Just curious.
-Kent

Peter Herpich said...

Just because I'm so familiar with my own face. If I don't have to spend energy trying to get a likeness, I can focus more on the distortions and expressive elements.

Kent said...

Ah. Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the answer!

KoolThing said...

I Love this!

Logoleptic Lulu said...

That picture is very surreal and abstract!

Count Sneaky said...

The Count loves creative work.
This work along with the drawings is extremely good.
I'm quitesure that it is difficult to maintain this level of creativity. The late Phillipe Noiret said: "The voyage is short. Let's try to make it first class." You are doing that. Count Sneaky

Chantel said...

Really quite engaging! I found myself seeing something new and interesting each time. Something I can walk away from and return to with a renewed interest. Well done!