And here, finally, is the finished painting- "Lightning Rod: Distillation II". This is the latest in my series of works dealing with the perceptual painting process and the second taking a honey bear as its subject. There's an element of camouflage or displacement in honey bears that speaks to the visual bait-and-switch of representational painting. Honey, like oil paint, is a luminous preservative. After spending two months of my life abiding with this object I can state with certainty that  real bodily experience has been distilled into this work.  More on this series and on perceptual painting in previous posts below-

In keeping with my recent work dealing with the perceptual painting process, I've begun work on another container, a literal and figurative vessel into which to pour my time and attention. This is my second honey bear painting- pics and thoughts related to this subject can be viewed in the post related to that first painting, 'Distillation', below. This new bear is a bit bigger. I expect that it will absorb no small amount of my time, but it's nice to have the opportunity to get a little more luscious with the paint. Here's an earlier state:

Graduated from the Lesley University College of Art And Design's MFA program. It has been a challenging two years, but very much worth the effort. Thankful, and feeling very enriched by my interactions with the faculty and my fellow students.

     
 Finally finished Distillation, my little totem to perceptual painting. There's more about the thinking behind this work in the previous post below.

                                                                               On site...

                                                          and a bit earlier in the process.

                              Here's the underpainting of a new one I've started. I've written about paintings being containers of experience a lot lately. This honeybear embodies a number of those issues. The honey it contains is a distillation of  sunlight, nectar, and the time and effort of bees. The light from my studio window and lamps reflects and filters through the bear, figuring another kind of distillation.    Like the honeybear, the finished painting will represent a packaged distillation of time, energy, and sunlight. The dimensions are again 12"x12",  denoting one square foot of realization.

                              A more finished state of the painting described below...

 

 

 

Here's a new self-portrait in progress that deals with the themes expressed in my most recent artist's statement, shown in the post below. As a symbol of knowledge, I thought an apple would make an appropriate subject for a work dealing with issues of experience and awareness of the body's physicality.

Here's an earlier state:

About time for a new artist's statement: 

Perceptual painting is and always has been a philosophical endeavor.  To stand before tangible reality and to express that purely human experience in visual, physical terms is to be a mirror for the world. With each stroke of paint, we give our perceptions substance.  Truly, this is the wonder of the painter’s art- that paint may be stuff and sensation simultaneously. This element of transfiguration speaks to the duality of the human condition as well; an awareness of our physicality, our corporeality, is an inextricable element of our experience, our sensory makeup.

My current work seeks to draw attention to the phenomenological inquiry that painting from life represents. Self-portraits have figured largely in this endeavor.  Whether in the studio or in the landscape, I have pulled back to include the mirror and its surroundings in these works; thus, the painting is not merely an image of my self, but of its reflection.  Embedding this perception of self in the midst of other witnessed phenomena allows the work as a whole to stand as a transfiguration, a meta self-portrait composed of successive, subjective decisions. In overtly depicting not just an image of my body, but the phenomenological experience of looking at my own body, I seek to address the elements of mediation and meditation intrinsic to perceptual painting.

                                                                                    -Matthew Meyer 2014  

 

Vanitas

Here's a new one, treating the theme of perceptual painting as a container of experience. I have again adopted the square format, seeing it as a box within which to store this container. In keeping with the perceptual painter's aim to lay claim or stake out a particular section of reality I have kept it to a tidy 12" x 12"- a square foot, the real estate agent's unit of measure.

 

Here it is in progress. Gotta say, this painting entailed a whole lotta staring...

 

 

                                     Here's an updated version of the work described below.