I’ve chosen to paint this portrait on banana box liners
because they’re so awful. They are stained,
crumpled, and gross. They reflect the
nastiness with which we serve the poor and are symbolic of the way we care for people in need.
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| James Thatcher Copyright 2018 |
This liner paper is the cheapest available. They come out of the boxes so rumpled that I have to iron the paper to make it possible to use.
I choose to paint with primers instead of “artist colors” for
similar reasons. Gesso is not intended as
a finished surface. It is cheap, stark, and dry looking.
Allowing the brown paper to show as an extra
color follows the rationale of using rough materials used to depict a rough situation.
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| Filling in the painting according to plan, but then... |
But the real moment of this project happened because of the brown paper. The head's structure had become confusing. Where did the hair begin and forehead end?
It was awkward so I decided to only use the four center panels of the face. As I continued to work on this cropped center section I had to move a panel aside to keep paint from getting on
it.
BREAKTHROUGH! It looked fascinating. Then I added back several other panels crookedly
which distorted the child’s face.
Consider the awful reality of a young disrupted life and the people we’re
creating. Disintegrated, unstable, disorderly,
chaotic…what was I thinking by lining up those panels so fastidiously in the
first place?
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| "Disarray", 2018, 84" x 60", Black & white gesso on banana box liners. James Thatcher Copyright 2018 |
Order is contrary to the form and content of this image. This portrait became terribly expressive and more troubling by rearranging the
pieces.
Success came in a moment and the painting finished quickly. Stay mindful.
