They represent a new direction for me. I have tried many times, without success to really pare a painting down to essentials. Mirage does that, or at least, is a long-awaited step in the right direction. Big sigh of relief.
The other new work is Festival which is a free-form, palette-knifed composition on raw canvas. Heck, yeah. That was fun. It is sort of festive in appearance, but the real festival was in the making.
It’s adhered with medium to a birch panel but left raw in places. I mean, I did not cover the work with more medium, gloss or matte, so the canvas maintains its quality which I like. Gives the piece immediacy and does not divorce it from its roots. Framing so often formalizes a work beyond where I want it to go.