In Contemplation of Kline 1987

Franz Kline "Nijinsky"

This six foot square canvas is the result of two divergent parts of my life coming together in a somewhat random fashion. This was a bit like my pondering the visual relationship between sihlouetted trees and UPC codes which then led me to translate Andy Warhols 32 soup cans into 998 trees alongside a river in the Bar Code Project. In this case, my work as a picture framer in Los Angeles in 1987 brought me in close contact with the Museum of Contemporary Art's collection of Franze Kline paintings which had been recently donated and were being prepared for the museums innagural exhibit at the new downtown location. I had a black telescope eye goldfish of significant size and finnage at the time, and whilst studying my fish as I wound down from my job I discovered a close relationship visually between my fish and the paintings I had been working with. See for yourself!

Note: As I'm reviewing this post I have discovered a surprisingly detailed resemblance between the right third of my work and the composition in the Kline painting that I found to illustrate my narrative here. This is pure coincidence but serves to illustrate my point quite nicely. I did my work from sketches taken from life, and only became familiar with Klines "Nijinski" during the google image search for this article!

1987
oil and enamel on canvas
72 x 72
Kline photo courtesy of timeout.com