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this stands as my sort of goodbye to the manila skyline. it came, i think, from the same place as b612; however this painting - again of nathan, whose beauty and character and twin journey to mine rendered him the closest thing to a muse i've ever or probably will ever have - was more express in its desire to break free. or to be.
it all seems so juvenile now, looking back on it all. but i don't think i'll ever outgrow my love for manila's orange sunsets, or that blistering skyline. and nathan, audacious and devil-may-care - - wearing scarves in the tropics. dreams of new york and george mallory and flight and more. that feeling sticks awhile.
the scarf is just straight up jersey cotton that i distressed and painted. the body is done in acrylics, the birds that spring from the scarf's shreds are in oil. i do still bristle a bit at the way the proportions worked themselves out on the canvas... his body just seems a little skewed. but all in all, this (and the impetus that conjured it up) are nostalgic darlings of mine.
this is probably my favorite painting i've done. for a couple of reasons, the first being my undying love for the little prince, my second being my undying love for nathan alexander haskell.
most of the paintings i did when i realized that painting is the most incredible did to do had to do with a concept i was pretty besotted with called "sehnsucht." like most concepts that strike a chord, it is german and untranslatable and pretentious as fuck.
but. my understanding of it, when i painted this around four years ago, went something like this: sehnsucht is somewhat akin to nostalgia. it's the itch we feel for the womb, for a savior, for a sense - an absolute and unquestioning sense - of belonging.
it's what prompted the little prince to tack himself onto a wandering flock of birds. it's that discontent that gurgles up every now and then, egging us on to grow up and out.
it in a lot of ways defined nathan and me back then. we yearned for an emancipation from the confines of our religious surroundings and our adolescent skins. we wanted out, or more accurately, we wanted up.
i painted nathan growing up from Saint-Exupery's beautiful illustration into a lifelike portrait, from watercolor into acrylic, from a dream into a reality. there is no elation here, so i guess the general message of the thing is that up isn't out at all. we'll never stop searching... or something silly like that.
this stands as my sort of goodbye to the manila skyline. it came, i think, from the same place as b612; however this painting - again of nathan, whose beauty and character and twin journey to mine rendered him the closest thing to a muse i've ever or probably will ever have - was more express in its desire to break free. or to be.
