RGB

Set of Three Paintings.
Acrylic on canvas paper, 16" x 20". 2004.

I had bare walls in my livingroom for several months, so I was determined to paint something nice enough to put up there that would fill some space. I thought that if I painted a set of paintings it would take up a ton of space, so I thought of what would be a good subject matter. I wanted something subtle but interesting, completely uncontroversial, and somehow abstract. I was soon flirting with the idea of painting three canvases red, green, and blue. These are the three primary colors of the additive color spectrum, which is used by televisions, monitors, projectors, and anything else that creates an image using light. Any designer who uses a computer is quite familiar with these three colors. I ended up making each color represent a certain element of nature: the red is kind of like fire, the green resembles thick jungle-like foliage, and the blue is a surreal sky. To enhance the cohesion of the three images, I made a part of each composition "leak" into its neighbors.

Staining the frames was kind of an ordeal and the color did not turn out how I wanted them, but they have a sort of tree-bark brown that happens to look pretty good with the colors in the paintings. I bought them assembled but unfinished (raw sanded wood). What happened was that I used an old (opened) can of wood stain and it must have changed over time because the color was not at all what it had produced when it was first used several months prior. Because the paintings are on canvas paper, I had to mount them on foam board before framing them. I used a point driver to install brackets that hold them in the frames. Finally I had to screw in D-rings and attach the wire for hanging them. Then I had to measure the area above the couch and find the perfect spots to hang them so they'd look nice above the couch. I can't believe how much work these took, but I think they look very good.