new website up...

Hello all,

check out my new website at www.paulendresjr.com

the pic is from review board, may 4th

St Abigail's Day

Hello again. "St. Abigail's Day" is the latest piece of the series, which is titled "The Burden". It is 24" x 72", a real joy to work on. I have 1 more piece to add to the series, and then will write at length about the whole, about a month or so.... Thanks for looking, enjoy!

-paul

You Can Either Surf, Or You Can Fight.

You Can Either Surf, Or You Can Fight is my first painting of 2010.

It is 72in. X 44in, making it the largest painting in the series yet.

As with the last paintings ive put on the site, i'll refrain from saying

too much about the content until the series is completed.

With that said, You Can Either Surf, Or You Can Fight is the most

accurate visual representation of my view of "history" i've painted yet, and for that

i'm happy, a conglomeration of polarities mashed violently together.

Also, it is the most dynamic and chaotic, piece in the series too,

making it my "cup of tea"but i'm sure some will find the amount

of information....too much , but then again, it's the too much stuff

that's sorta the point .

Big thanks go out to the growing cast for their acting,

and thanks for looking, enjoy!!

Review Board- (12/16/09)

Here's a couple pics from December, the four paintings I did this semester in my studio, and how they were displayed at my review board. i'm very excited about this next semester and how the paintings will add to the narrative, as well as obscure it further. happy new year!

Home

The last painting of the semester, titled, "Home", features Abigail Daedalus wrapped in caution tape, as she returns home. I imagine that this painting and the earlier "I read the news today, oh boy", happen at the same exact time. The piece is 24" x 36" so a little smaller than the last pieces, maybe a little more reserved. Slowly but surely the narrative is growing.

This piece received a great reception at my end of the semester review board for the normality of the environment in contrast to the bizarre outfit Abigail wears.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" The painting is 6 feet long, 3 feet tall, completed this week. Personally, it is with this painting that I have experienced my biggest "turn around", in that I really wasn't happy with it for a long time and stopped working on it for about a month and a half, and then suddenly if made sense again, and it turned into a painting I really love. I was really far outside my comfort zone (if one exists) in a healthy and productive way .

Narratively, this is a painting of Everett Whipple as he is waiting out the epidemic on the roof. Check out the statement on the left for more info, as this painting certainly pertains to it.

Finally, This painting wouldn't exist if it weren't for fellow artist Andrew Ross, whose collaboration is always rewarding, so a big thanks to him.

Enjoy the piece, check back soon!

Mr. and Mrs. Daedalus

Hello all, here is the latest painting for your viewing pleasure, titled "Mr. and Mrs. Daedalus" (until further notice). I spent the better part of today trying to get a decent picture of it, so you'll have to forgive me when I say, "it really is better in person". With that said,

I am very pleased with how the piece pulled itself together. I've decided to start posting a working (and I stress working) artist statement to the left hand margin of the site. The statement will be adjusted and evolve as the work changes and grows. As a reference point, the statement applies to the paintings I Read the News Today, Oh Boy, and Mr. and Mrs. Daedalus, though rest assured, I've got plenty of irons in the fire, mwhahahah (fiendish laugh). Bad jokes aside, that brings me to the final thing, if you are looking at this painting and think you'd want to participate in future work let me know! Especially over winter break. So, without further adieu, here is the statement, and enjoy the painting!

My current work is a conflation and conglomeration of history, art history, memory, pop culture, and the self. It is the burden of history materialized and in a rambling non-chronological narrative. Referencing 18th and 19th century portraiture, American comics and film of the 1960's, and cheap horror movies of today, the work seeks the ambiguous common ground between polarities. In the garbage heap of history everything is traceably interconnected and in a state of constant convergence and transformation. All distinction is lost, crucial and absurd, past and present, self and whole, even living and dead.

There is also, of course, a subtext of a 21st century zombie epidemic. This is a play on an extremely literal take on history as a response to the current emphasis on “historicizing” without understanding history. If history is a piling up of historical debris, then in this literal interpretation the pile would occupy a physical space. Thus, there is simply no space to put our dead. Each generation piles up to infect and contaminate the next. The consumer society adopts it’s mantel literally as well, a horde of insatiable zombies.

The paintings, done in a pseudo-retrospect looking back to these disastrous events, tragically celebrate the heroes and stories of the time, but are unsure as to what end they hope to achieve.

new frarme

hello out there, i switched the frame to the piece and it seems to be quite a change, thus, a new post. its brighter and kinda more hokey

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

I would like to refrain from saying too much about the content of this work until the narrative is further fleshed about by more pieces, though, i think it is entirely possible to understand at least some of the story with the information provided. what i will say though, is that this new painting is the first (though not chronologically first) of a longer series that deals with the themes i've been examining for the past few years, history, memory, and identity, and the overwhelming and converging accumulation.

The title is I Read the News Today, Oh Boy, but this is subject to change when the other paintings join it.

I'm very happy with the piece, hope you enjoy too!

first wave

infection prevention suit version 1

back at the SMFA

hello there, the last month or so has been something of a jumble of taking photos for source material for zombie paintings, studying the last supper and the death of marat,  finishing paperwork for school, working like a fiend, and finally moving (mostly  ) to boston.  

   Here is a picture of the new studio on the second floor, i'm really moving up in the world, literally (sorry, couldn't resist)  yesterday I wrote a sort of state of the union for my art and brain.  The workload this semester will be intense, but i have a feeling things will,  sync up?  This graduate program sounds as though it is just the right experience i need at this point in time and life.  it will be good for me.

  see you around internet gods

zombie progress 7

the newspaper and shelf ......

spring review board

i had my spring review board 2 days ago, it went very well and was very helpful in terms of putting my thoughts in order and getting advice on my work.  this is how i set up my studio for the review, it looks amazingly clean compared to what it was.

  now the summer season is here, which means sundae school and painting.  the next paintings will continue with full figures interacting with the conglomerations, as in  OMG!111 , but may be in a real world context,...... and just may involve zombies.... ha!

  so, off to the cape it is to set up shop somewhere and get to it.  see you on the other side.

OMG!111

OMG!111, the last painting of the semester.  its 54" x 54". it is, for me, primarily a painting of collapsing polarities and how they relate to history and identity.  everything in history is somehow connected to everything else, therefore even opposites have aspects in common, or perhaps are even one in the same.

  it is a series of beginnings and ends and opposites collapsing.

  (finally) moving on to full figures, Keegan Ruby acts as a god figure at the moment of creation as well as revelation, she is both creating the world and destroying it.  

  

"to infinity and beyond" -the most existential thing a toy has ever said

no i haven't forgot about you!   here is a collection of progress pics from the Father, Son, and the American Spirit..... painting.  I did take pictures after every session, but reduced it to this many pictures.  top to bottom, left to right. gotcha.  the biggest changes are the mouth on the left is redone about halfway through, and near the very end the indian head slot machine turns into a statue of liberty slot machine.

  anyways, the new/last painting in the post bacc program is underway, it has to do with the moment of creation and Genesis and Revelation.....weighty right?? jeeez no its not that bad.  trying to get more "old mastery" type history painting with full figures receding into the background (ala caravaggio),  but keeping it as confusing, absurd, tragic, and stimulant full as the 21st century. the other tricky thing is the new painting is a 54" square.....yeah i've forgotten how strange a shape a square is.  though, the first day i was painting it i had an uncanny sense of deja vu of the same feeling i had when i first started painting the V series in fall of 2007.  then i didn't know i know or care care i couldn't really paint, it was like being a child.  when i started the new square painting i got that feeling again, like i was 5 years old drawing ninja turtles on the kitchen table, it was a nice moment. 

there are 2 and a half weeks left of painting here this year, then i'll be part of the MFA program here in september.  my plan is to do at least 1 large painting a month over may, june, july and august, that is an extension of the investigation i am on right now about history, memory and identity, and then smaller studies on the side.  so yeah, come back and see the new painting on april 29th!

The father, son, and the American Spirit or The Secret Failure of the Civil War

"The Father, Son, and the American Spirit or The Secret Failure of the Civil War".  yes thats the whole name.  7 feet long, 3 feet tall, started this back in january and had it on my mind for a long time.  the production rate of the paintings has slowed significantly, last semester i had 10 paintings in the review board, this year i'm hoping to have 4  (brotherly love, bath time, the secret failure, and 1 more). 

   This is a slight departure from the previous paintings in 2 main ways.  the first is obvious, its horizontal.  the second is that i wasn't thinking of  a particular historical event to spark the painting.

 Major themes here are memory, history, and national/self identity once again, but also confusion, fear, excess, helplessness and polarities that are the same thing. its about outward violence and violence against our own.  consuming and being consumed. my family and the nation. The painting is successful in communicating what i want to talk about, but heres a little bit of what i was thinking...

  I really wanted to place the painting in a greater art historical, and historical context, which picasso and gang help with.  guernica is a major influence here.  Every person on a dollar bill now is in the painting, kind of a "re up" of the "redux XX" paintings (below) which were not really successful.  Also, i had to re-address what my problem with american currency was. Washington rejected any payment when he lead the army, and how did we "repay" him? we put him ON THE DOLLAR? it's as if we just didn't get it, like we missed the point.  

  So 200 years later we are equating man with currency.  to put a monetary value on a person is a form of slavery. my problem with american currency is that it perpetuates the enslavement of americans, including some of those who were the best of us (washington, lincoln).  We believe america vanquished slavery in the civil war, though we enslave our forefathers, and they enslave us.  its a sort of cannibalism, consumerism, and just plain confusion.

  now factor this this into today, where it seem you cant buy a cup of coffee without having a panic attack about the economy in crisis, the falling stock market, and corporate bonuses.  I know they're linked, but for God's sake the economy and the nation are not the same thing!  talk about slavery.  

  so yeah,  i was thinking something like this, which is not to dispel the greater notions of war, greed, fear, the modern world etc etc

any questions let me know or if you want to see it in person.

  Detail 1.  The flag and money color confusion and the All Seeing iPod

 Detail 2. My mom holding a sign that says, "what do you mean you're going to art school?!"

Detail 3. My dad next to the threat level love tester, and snapshots from Picasso's Guernica.

Detail 4. The Statue of liberty slot machine, inspired from indian slot machines, look em up.  She's holding a paint brush= the creation as creator

collage

collage in the studio

the dollar is coming!

its been a little while, but is the internet effected by time? i dont know, anyways, the latest painting is a big one, thus its taking a little extra time.  my production has slowed significantly since 1 year ago, now doing about 1 painting per month, but considering they are bigger, more detailed, and just better paintings, i'm ok with it,..... trying to adjust.  so until then here are a few pics, the first two are old family pictures.

   check out the guy on the far left, looks just like my dad and my uncle will, but taken in the late 19th century. george endres (i need to double check the back for the name to be sure.)
  the third is a photo taken of me while working on the latest painting by another SMFA student (connie sawyer) who is doing portraits of the post bacc program.

  the last one is my brother mike in front of "tea party" in the SMFA student annual exhibit.

Bath Time

alrighty, so here is the latest painting, "Bath Time".  I'm sorta in the middle of evolving beliefs of history, memory and identity, so i might take back what i say here, but those are the big themes at work here.  to put this painting into a historical box, it is about the sinking of the Lusitania, an event that propelled the US into WWI, (with the help of an ingenious british propaganda campaign, dare i say, noble propaganda?  no lets not get into that) .  this event is converging with the creation of the atomic bomb, my nephew griffins bath time, washington crossing the delaware, the destruction of the essex (aka moby dick), and my sister melissa and husband dan.  a series of escalating events.......

  To answer some of the questions i've had thus far on this and other pieces, yes, i intend to make historical, cultural, and person references in the subjects i paint and how they are put together in the painting.  i am currently wrestling to justify in my own mind how history can exist as a non-sequential entity(which i believe it does) if the "cause and effect" relationship exists?   I think the answer lies in how memory works.  Each painting is becoming increasingly theatrical and more about memory then history.  I think history is like our minds, in that it can jump from own thought or time to a completely different and foreign thought.  Some of these  seem completely irrelevant (ie. dunking donuts box) but they must have some connection if we allow our thoughts to jump to it,.....right?  in any event, we mix and match our own personal history with national history, maybe i think of bath as a kid, and then i think of the lusitania sinking, then i think of washington crossing the delaware, = non sequential history existing in the memory = reality is a shared invention .  is this thing on?

the first detail here has washington and colleen and myself

the second detail is oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb

Brotherly Love

This painting is about the start of the american civil war as a sibling rivalry or dispute blown way out of proportion.  like Cain and Able (which is what the painting is there on the right by titian) my brother pete(bottom right) and i are beginning to split, my head pulling away and beginning to pull the string taught with me, as all the crap above begins to tip over.  there's a lot going on here and its real ambiguous in terms of what the viewer should walk away with, but thats the point.  this is not war yet, its disagreement that leads to war.  i see the huge mouth full of talking heads as a personification of war; a beast we create that bares our likeness, that can tip the world over and devour indiscriminately. at least we have our lucky charms!