Dennis Hollingsworth

¿Quien es El Patrón?

Pattern. "Patrón" or "modelo" in castellano. I'm looking for a way forward in the method that I've relied on for the past five years of using masking in painting. Lines, curves, leaves, vines, nature, text... I wanted to shake it up, find another path in this camino. This puts the image up front, as opposed to arriving at an image after taking on a blank canvas, the traditional approach, each act circumscribing the set of possible subsequent acts, a narrowing grind resulting into the final manifesting image. Not so with the mask. In spanish, patrón also means an employer, a boss... which is also commands the image in painting. Paint goes down unconstrained until the time comes to lift the mask, where facture everywhere is sheared by the imaged edge.

Like a boss.

The thing is, this painting didn't dazzle me when I finished it. So, it's not finished. Therefore, the fragments of images of it in this entry. Two possibilities: scrape it off and start over, or place it to the side and add elements to it until it shines. Choosing the latter, since there's much of it that I like. Let's see if accretions will redeem it. I estimate that it'll take a month or so... until I go to Spain for the summer.