Tag Archives: primitive art

Her Lap of Roses

Posted by npaul on

Acrylic on paper (1994)

Size (not documented, work now in private collection)

This painting was included in my series Breast Cancer: A Progress, though it is not about breast cancer at all but is simply a celebration of women. As I wrote at the time, it was included in the series to remind us of what we are fighting for against this devastating disease.

I provided the following background information for the show at Art Noise Gallery, Kingston, 1994.

Sources/Acknowledgements:

Centre panel: Botticelli (Italian, 15th century), Primavera (detail: lap of Flora)

Side panels, figures: Goddess figures from ancient cultures

Side panels, backgrounds: Paul Klee (Swiss, 20th century), Jardin de Roses

Self Portrait as Primitive

Posted by npaul on

Conte on paper (1989)

This drawing was originally titled Under the Hill, after East Coker by T S Eliot.

“The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.”

I said in 1989 that the image is about death and rebirth, about the passage of time and the rhythm of generations; that it also has to do with the elemental part of ourselves which we discover, recognize, only in times of extremity.

Carbon Dating (Detail)

Posted by npaul on

Carbon Dating 2

Acrylic and conte on canvas (2015)

Size:  w 24″ x h 30″

A fossil of the primitive bird Archaeopteryx lithographia (the “Berlin specimen”) from the Solnhofen Limestone site in southern Germany was the inspiration for this painting, which took a turn or two of its own past that image.

Flight (from “Origins” series)

Posted by npaul on

Acrylic and photograph collage on granite (2012)

Size: (w) 23 1/2″ x (h) 11 3/4″ x (d) 3″

Flight was created in response to a call for art inspired by the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve in southeastern Ontario, Canada. For this piece as well as others in the “Origins” series, I obtained granite, sandstone, and limestone — sawn on one side — from a quarry near Seeley’s Bay;  I took the photographs of rock, water, and sky along the Thousand Islands Parkway between Brockville and Lansdowne.