Flower Power on Water Street

Flower Power on Water Street is art about art, a painting depicting Carlos Rolon's transformation of the Chase Bank atrium for downtown Milwaukee Sculpture Event 2019.  Originally titled Gild the Lily, the Rolon installation is comprised of sheets of translucent material applied to the glass walls of the building.  When I create a painting of another artists' work, I have double goals for the piece. Obviously the first is to render the chosen artwork in a way that complements it and represents it faithfully.  The other goal is to present the impact and relationship it has with  the environment in which it exists.  Giant flowers cover the entire glass atrium cube and explode in brilliant colors within the drab hues of the city.  Adding to this dramatic impact is the "above and below" spatial experience of looking up to see the height of the buildings and down to see their reflections in the river.

Artistically, this painting presented many challenges.  Plotting the 4 point perspectives and angles of the architectural buildings had to be done accurately, the relationship between the artificial, man made colors of  Gild the Lily's flowers had to be balanced with the natural browns of the river and the neutral grays of the buildings, and also between the detailed, precise artwork and the distorted, wavy surface of its' refections in the water.

This was an urban landscape created with a direct painting technique, an approach that was consciously and deliberately made, in contrast to some of my works that are completed in an intuitive, experimental way.  Yet, I did allow the medium to be the expressive agent, especially in the water rendering, with backruns, lifting out layers and encouraging the blending of many unmixed colors on the paper surface. I like the contrast between the clean, primary colors of Rolon's flowers with the uncontrolled, rippled refections in the brown umbers of the river water. I also am happy with the variation of techniques within the painting, from the simple one-stroke lavender of the sky to the painterly rust drips on the river walls and the river reflections.  Flower Power on Water Street was begun in my watercolor class and continues my affection for the urban landscape of Milwaukee.  It is currently on exhibit at the C edarburg Cultural Center in the 75th Annual Ozaukee County Art Show, opening March 11, 2022.