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Exhibition at MiraCosta College - October 2002
The Humanity Series - 2003Digital Paintings - 2004 through 4/30/2005
Digital Paintings - through 4/30/2006Digital Paintings - through 7/31/2006
New Paintings Through July/2010
Here is one painting from Sedona and five paintings inspired by my trip to Greece in June 2000. If you are interested in purchasing a painting please see the sales page.
Click images to enlarge
Dancing Trees
Acrylic on Canvas
24" by 32"
Mykonos Oceanfront
Oil on Canvas
24" by 32"
Four Master at Santorini
Oil on Canvas
24" by 32"
Santorini Villas
Oil on Canvas
24" by 32"
Small Greek Harbor
Oil on Canvas
24" by 32"
View to the Ionian Sea
Oil on Canvas
24" by 32"
All images are copyrighted by Howard Ganz and may not be reproduced without written consent.
Paintings from My Neighborhood
Click images to enlarge
Street with Light and Shadows
Acrylic on Canvas
24" by 32"
I've been making paintings of what I see in my neighborhood. I keep a camera with me most of the time and record things that interest me. In just a few months I already have close to a 1000 digital photos. I have been using this photo archive as a reference for my recent paintings.
This new series of paintings is being done in my studio rather than in the open air. And each one has taken much longer to paint than the outside studies I had been doing for the past few years. They are acrylic on canvas, and I have completed five at the time of this writing. I am becoming comfortable with this new painting process, though at first I wanted to paint as quickly as I did outside, and the slow contemplative character of the new process was frustrating to me.
When I painted quickly outdoors I cherished the spontaneity and the excitement of immediate decision making which remains in the paint for the viewer to re-enact. I also loved my immersion in the sparkling, flickering, refracting light outdoors and the immediate perceptual reactions I had to these stimuli, and the challenge of restating it all quickly in my painting.
My outdoor paintings are not only a reaction to the various aspects of light and perception, but are also about structure: the structure of the land, mountains, sky and the structure of my paintings. The subject of these paintings is the structural arrangements of color, shape and gesture in the guise of land, mountains, sky, light, etc.
My neighborhood paintings forced me to change many of the basic propositions which guided my previous paintings. In these new paintings I accept the roll of an observer. In previous paintings I chose the forms and the landscapes that would allow me to make the statements I wanted to make about structure, color and evolution.
I have not given up on the propositions of my previous paintings. I've just temporarily suspended them. Because circumstances have forced me to stay home and paint what's around me, whether I like it or not.
So, I have been painting what I observe around me. I try to find things that I like or that are exciting to me. I try not to be too negative or positive, just paint. I like the five paintings I have completed, but don't know where this is taking me. I am getting comfortable with my new process of painting. The only basic proposition I can see right now is to observe and portray without too much preaching, and to push the subject, with some restraint, in the direction of my feelings.
Looking Down My Street
Acrylic on Canvass
24" by 36"
Also, in my previous landscapes the character of their structure did not include people, but now, since I am an observer, I can admit people into my paintings.
Between Rides Legoland
Acrylic on Canvas
24" by 32"
Spaceport Legoland
Acrylic on Canvas
24" by 32"
Hydonauts Legoland
Acrylic on Canvas
24" by 32"
As you can see, Legoland at Carlsbad, California is in my neighborhood, and I have been working from photographs I have taken there.
It looks like I will switch back and forth between these two modes of painting for a while, depending on the circumstances.
I am going to spend most of June in Greece. Who knows how that will change me.
May 23, 2000
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Of course the paintings at the top of this page show my work from Greece.
All images are copyrighted by Howard Ganz and may not be reproduced without written consent.