PROGRESS STILL

Latex on canvas and wall

12x12"

Still moving ahead in this body of work (and I apologize for the terrible images, but it is the best quality image I can get right now. I'll have better ones later on--I promise.) This piece is not yet titled, but eventually I will get down to naming these when I've moved along a bit more and have spent more time thinking on them.

PAINTING DEVELOPMENT : STUDIO SHOTS

 Latex on canvas

24x24"

I'm furthering my experiences in painting and the different ways I can express the specific themes I've been dealing with in my work (e.i. space, time, the infinite, and ultimately questions of origins of both our art/art making, and our universe.) But furthermore, the topic in dealing with these subjects has been the theme of relationship and space particularly.  Relation of the painting to the wall, and visa versa, and we as humans to the universe. One particular question that I keep in the back of my mind and contributes to my thinking of these pieces and in conjunction with relationship is, do I take part in God or does He take part in me? Do I invite Him into my life, or do I request to be apart of His much larger plan. 

These "space" paintings, as I've kind of coined them for myself, are after something in particular, and that is that they are both representative and literal at the same time; and that is something I enjoy working out in my work and find relevant to my faith. These pieces are addressing space both representationally and literally in the sense that there is somewhat of an illusion of deep space within the frame, and at the same time they draw attention to the actual space that we all inhabit in their abject-hood (the minimal qualities of the pieces that declare space.) I equate this relationship to that of Christ, the logos, who was both fully God and fully man: representative of God and God Himself at the same time.

The horizon line is something that I have been using for some time now, and it has a deal of importance to me. In this piece the line/cutout depicted is vertical. But couldn't it still be a horizon? The earth is not flat after all. But the one thing that might be of the most importance is how there is now, with the hanging cutout strip, a factor of positive and negative space,  one thing that, in a sense, creates the other by merely existing (like light and dark,) which brakes the frame in the traditional sense. The line through the middle is mirrored by the hanging piece, and reaches into the beyond. At the same time, and in the back of my mind, the imagery is somewhat reminiscent of a wound and the blood pouring from it, as well as a narrow opening. 

(Note: these are rough images, and I would ask that you disregard the paint on the wall beneath the panting. It is not apart of the piece. The piece is not yet titled.)

2 NEW COLLAGES

 Reunion, 2012

Mixed media

18x12"

 Reunion (detail)

Within Me, 2012

Mixed media

18x12"

3 NEW COLLAGES

 Come Thou Fount

Mixed media

18x12"

Transfiguration

Mixed media

18x12"

Third Morning

Mixed media

18x12"

NEW WEBSITE

I have made a new website on tumblr that I will be using as my main portfolio. So here it is:
http://stephenwevans.tumblr.com/

I hope to be changing it to a .com soon...

YES

“I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing...like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.”
--James Turrell

3-IN-1 PAINTING: "THE SECOND DAY"

The Second Day, 2012

Latex and florescent spray-paint on canvas

73x72"

This newer painting, now titled "The Second Day," had me a little stumped for while, and though I had a rough idea as to what I was trying to accomplish, it was still largely a mystery. So, I took some time one day recently to sit down in front of it and write some notes down in my notebook, and came to a better understanding of what this piece means to me and what it's all about:

Perhaps it is raising the awareness of the vast interconnectedness of the space in which we inhabit and the eternal space of the universe. This is highlighted. It’s remembering the big picture and how fascinating it all really is. Because the piece is read as one thing, though it is comprised of three elements: the two painted panels and the third being the wall itself. It becomes not a division of material, but rather a uniting. Perhaps it is bringing to light that eternity is a reality, and closer at hand than we give notice. It is very easy to forget the massive place in which we live in, and our relation to it. I’d like to draw attention to that because of how humbling it can be.

Relation, I think, is one of the most important things because it is what connects us all as humans. As surgeon and author Sherwin Nuland brings to attention that the things that relates humans universally, no matter where you grew up, or what side of the world you’re on, is the basic biological make up that we all share that comprise our needs, wants, pains, and emotions, and ultimately an understanding. In his own words he says that it is these things that humans “share by virtue of the physical properties of their body and kind of brain they have, which bring out certain sorts of strivings, certain sorts of emotional needs that are indeed universal.” I think it’s the awareness of these things that make you feel smaller in a larger place, and draws attention to beauty of “the big picture.” Awareness and the spirit are becoming synonymous for me. The feeling of awe when encountering nature, a newborn, and the awareness of relation to a person, place, or thing brings about things in us that are very unrelated to nature and are abstract at that. This being said, it arouses the question as to how it all came to be. Why is there something rather than nothing? (This a question you will see pop up a lot on here I think.)

James Turrell's "Roden Crater"

In a way, it relates to James Turrell’s “Roden Crater” in the respect that you feel more in your place, when faced with such a vast space, viewing the stars in such a way that you feel yourself turning instead of the stars, which is the reality. In this sense you feel like you are stepping into a great space and perhaps realizing, or feeling, your smallness. In a sense, the “space” in the painting is scaleless and infinite, and relates to the Crater in this way. In the painting, it is seeing all the parts as a whole, and all of time at once. 

The Second Day (detail)

In C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, He states something rather profound in dealing with time and how it relates, or does not relate, to God. In chapter 25, entitled TIME AND BEYOND TIME, Lewis illustrates a rather abstract, yet basic understanding of the relation between both God and man’s journey in time, stating:

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.

This painting, now titled “The Second Day”, relating to the Genesis narrative and the second day of creation, speaks onto this subject where heaven and earth/ land and sky are separated. But it is also the first morning, and the birth of the horizon. This line can be seen as a separation of things, or perhaps more optimistically, as a place where things are joined together.