Sunday, February 03, 2008

"la danse" on the brain








a year and a half ago i was asked to do a mural-sized (about 7' x 10') interpretation of henri matisse's "la dance" for my school. for various reasons it has not been possible until now- my canvases arrived in the mail today. i will say that i am excited and terrified. matisse's three versions are above in chronological order. i've been practicing for a while, but still not settled on the color palate. not sure how to honor someone's work and make it my own. i've enjoyed falling in love with this piece as its brilliance was not easy for me to access right away. here's a little article that unpacks that a bit. so, this is to say... i feel a bit out of my league having never done anything this big, prominent and permanent... with that i'm grateful for and humbled by the opportunity. so if you can pray for an artist to access something "brilliant" in the creative process and delivery... please do, i'll keep you posted.







6 comments:

JLG said...

that is an exciting shipment to get in the mail :) phil, all these on the bottom are ones you've been playing with? i'm really quite drawn to the bottom right... and the larger one you have. the lighting is the most intriguing to me... is that the paint or a lighting source?

oh, so so fun. thanks for posting these. i'm thrilled for the day of unveiling... cannot wait. how is the paint medium treating you?

elnellis said...

yeah, the four on the bottom... thanks for the feed back. are you referring to the light in the bottom right one or the big one? cause someone else said they loved the light in the bottom right, unfortunately, that's a flash, but i'm going to try to repeat that effect because i like it too!
thanks again.

JLG said...

yup, bottom right.

funny, i do that all of the time. (take a photograph and enjoy the lighting effect... wish it was the actual painting...)

cris said...

i'll jump into the conversation--i agree with Jen on liking the top one and the bottom right. I love that you are exploring it in a lot of different ways and i hope that you begin to get lost in the project (in a good way). I also hope you heal quickly. Get better!

elnellis said...

thanks so much for your feedback too cris. i can't tell you how many times i have the thought that you or jen or ed should be doing this thing... so it feels good to open it up to you for thoughts. it's not like any piece i've done, this one is for the community...

Aaron said...

from a non-artist's eye:
i really like the same piece... i think the lighting (as provided by the camera's flash) really communicates the presence of the Transcendent within community/encounter....

that's what i'm seeing anyway...