In progress- 'City of Glass 16 - (1 block = 1 brick)'

 

'City of Glass 16'   210 x 120cms

Early days for new City of Glass* painting - but now going through the gears with longer sessions in the studio. Still trying to establish the scale of Manhattan and position of Central Park.  The only certainty is the central axis of 69th St and Park Ave, the location of the Stillman apartment, with the divide leading the eye down to Grand Central Station.  It's too fragmented, everything needs to be simplified, including the colour-scheme. The grid pattern of the streets will be extended over the entire canvas forming the bricks of the tower shape. There may be a tiny figure of Stillman exiting the painting in the bottom left corner.

Music has been driving the painting: Neil Young's After the Goldrush and Sleeps with Angels with the epic Change your Mind and Closer by Joy Division: ' you can't replace the fear and thrill of the chase...' Sums up painting really.

* from 'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster

Detail

Detail