I'm nearing the end of these pieces and think I need to make...eehhh, maybe 3 more. 2 people sharing a box is next for sure. If you look back at my work, starting around three years ago, you'll see I began to use a square behind a lot of my subjects. It started as a template for size constrains/desires and soon after I broke the boundaries of the square/box. My daily drawings began to use the square/box as something to push and pull space within the composition. I began to favor the box as aesthetically pleasing to the point of almost needing the box to consider a work to be complete. The last pieces that included the box were the cow drawing, "meditation" and the cloud series, "presence". During the creation of these pieces I realized this obsession and decided to attempt some work without this "miracle drug" of a box. What helped was a concept that blatantly opposed the need for the box, the notice series. The white space was the unsung hero of that whole group. I drew 16 life-size back portraits and didn't even think of the box once. I admit I regressed and drew a few bird drawings with the box afterward but I have since drawn a series of 7 lightning bugs and haven't considered the box for months. Now, without realizing it, I've made the "square/box" three dimensional and the focus of my current series. It makes me laugh. I'm okay with this and I feel like I've taken what I compositionally loved in the past and partnered it with what I've conceptually come to admire in my recent notice series, concealment that allows more questions and applicability. So, last week I decided to go through a book of mine about symbols in Christian art and do some research on the web about the square as a symbol. This is what I found:
In Christian art, the square halo identified a living person presumed to be a saint. A circle is perfect; so is Heaven. Earth is imperfect; so is the square. The square, in contrast with the circle, is the emblem of the earth, and of earthly existence. In this sense it is used in painting as the nimbus(Halo) of living persons. The square in a horizontal-vertical position is an expression of the two dimensions that constitute a surface. Basically 
means land, field,
means land, field, What or how this applies is questionable but I found it interesting at least. The box could represent being "in" vs. "of" the world/earth I suppose. I think I like that but I'm not really claiming it quite yet. It's still just a barrier that the figure can not, chooses not, or naively doesn't recognize the need to escape.
Oh no....it's the Matrix.......10 years later that first movie still echos in me.
0 comments → Thinking inside, outside, and back in the box.
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