I built Rhapsody in Blue from the previous artworks, Vogue, and Ronda All Turk. These three works are the major artworks for 2018, not only because of their size, but because they may have given me the opportunity to shake the artistic tree. This final image of Rhapsody’s contributes to that shake up.
Rhapsody in Blues obviously quivers the tree visually, because of its unusual handling of the subject matter. Portraits, and landscapes, and abstract paintings are all positioned on their backgrounds. This is not true with Rhapsody where the subject matter is physically independent from the background.
What is that rustling of the leaves I am hearing? Well that is Rhapsody presenting a look that drops the stylistic use of the splish-splash use of color seen in much of today’s art. Rhapsody also combines two different forms of abstraction seen in the expressionist coloring of the music while the rest of the painting uses the solid colors of colored color field painting. The limbs and leaves of the artistic tree are now swaying about.
And finally, to shake the fruit from the tree, I replaced much of the background with space and air leaving the stretched canvas, decorated in Art Deco, to symbolize a background that serves little purpose.
Each of these paintings could help to define music to the viewer as something that is not to be heard but felt. If that is so than I am heading in the right direction. If the viewer see these three paintings as original fine art pieces than I am certainly staying this course. And yet I am far from seeing any of that happening. None of these artworks have sold, or received any attention including appearing in public. Until that day arrives I will keep doing what I have always done: move on to the next project, while keeping my focus on shaking that damn tree. To step up the pace I might have to bring out the saw.
Scott Von Holzen
aRT iN mUSIC 