MAYAN WOMAN AND CHILD - 11" x 14" OIL PASTEL ...

Mayan Woman and Child, 11" x 14" oil pastels on smooth drawing paper -- drawn from a photo I took in Navil, Chiapas, Mexico in 1998 during a human rights effort --
Possibly completed or near it -- need to give it a rest ...

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

 

MARKER SKETCH - HAVANA, CUBA, STREET SCENE

Marker sketch, Havana Cuba street scene, from photo I took in 1995, drawn on 8.5" x 5.5" sketch paper ...

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

MARKER SKETCH - "REFUGEES ON THE MOVE" ...

Marker sketch - "Refugees on the Move," Sunday morning drawing on 8.5" x 5.5" sketch paper -- I drew this from an internet photo (Africa, no location specified or photo credit) --

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

 

MARKER SKETCH - PALESTINIAN SCHOOLCHILDREN CROSS MILITARY DEBRIS BARRIER

Quick marker sketch - Palestinian schoolchildren cross Israeli military debris barrier on way to school -- from photo I took in 2001 in Beit Ummar, the West Bank -- drawn on 8.5" x 5.5" sketch paper...
(Israeli military occupied building on left and had camo camp atop building; atop hill is an imposed large Israeli settlement - you couldn't know that from the photo either -- we stood at the barrier so the kids could pass -- UN team brought teachers to barrier so they could cross also)

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

PROGRESSION - DISPLACED MAYAN WOMAN AND CHILD -- OIL PASTELS

 

Progression -- Displaced Mayan Woman and Child, 11" x 14" oil pastels on smooth drawing paper -- drawn from a photo I took in Navil, Chiapas, Mexico in 1998 --

Third steps -- working on coherence ...

 

Second steps -- things are pretty much in place, need to work out how they relate in a coherent way and in themselves ...

Initial steps -- roughing it in, working out color, shape, style and texture --

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

MARKER SKETCH - REFUGEES WALKING TOWARD TENTS

Quick sketch on 5.5" x 8.5" paper - "Refugees Walking Toward Tents"

 

(c) 2914 Wes Rehberg

 

COMING ALONG - "REFUGEES IN FLIGHT" - ACRYLIC PAINTING

Taking my time with "Refugees in Flight," acrylic painting on 16" x 20" canvas ... in progress.

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

THREE (FAUVIST) MARKER SKETCHES - 8.5"x5.5" PAPER

Messing with Fauvism, here are three marker sketches on 8.5"x5.5" sketch pad paper.

 

 

 

 

Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

 

"FORCIBLY DISPLACED MAYANS" - OIL PASTEL ON CHARCOAL PAPER

Progression - "Forcibly Displaced Mayans" - oil pastel drawing on charcoal paper, 9"x10.5"
-- So be it -- finis -- (so it seems) -- but my reaction to it, starting all over again - too tentative, too careful, too controlled all at once -- mixed feeling --

Second step
Working it out little by little

 

First stage::
 Finding coherence with composition but the combination of oil pastels and charcoal paper isn't providing the "feel" I'm looking for. Have to find work around with this picture.

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

A THOUGHTFUL CRITIQUE FROM MY PARTNER

Eileen, my artist and artful spouse, offered a good critique of my re-emerging process with drawing and painting last night – basically, let the work talk to you, don’t force ideas on it, don’t get clever.

Same with subject, if I extend her thoughts – for example, does a work have to have a social justice theme all the time? Yet, I scan the internet for social-justice related photos and my photos and films from our human rights work for images to work from, start from anyway.

I’m drawn to the Fauvist, Social Realism and Ashcan schools in art right now but I don’t want to mimic them. Still early in this return to these art forms for me. I need to allow for discovery and spontaneous collaboration between me and the work and the subject and my capabilities and the medium, to keep in mind what Eileen said.

Thinking about my age in all this, too, 77, soon to be 78 -- so odd.

"HOMELESS" - OIL PASTEL ON CHARCOAL PAPER - PROGRESSION

"Homeless," oil pastel on 9"x12 charcoal paper -- the progression --

Maybe completed (maybe not) -- letting it be ... issues ...

Step three:
 Some more progress - slow going because of medium and paper ...

Step two:
 Some progress:

Step one:
Roughing it in ...

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

YET SEARCHING FOR STYLE ...

conjure ... conjure
Yet searching for style.

As another artist mentioned, style will find me.
But I’m cerebral too and need to conjure and analyze.
Try this, try that.
Some won’t conjure.

What hits and fits, then.

"NO RETURN" - 4TH IN REFUGEE SERIES..- PROGRESSIONS.

Fourth in refugee series, third drawing, "No Return," oil pastel on charcoal paper, 9"x12" - progress of drawing posted here, latest first:

Step three:
Seems completed --

Step two:
Progressing ...

Step one:
Background will be dynamic compared to stillness of elder Palestinian woman here. Feels stiff, though.

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

"REFUGEE WOMEN" -- OIL PASTELS ON DRAWING PAPER

Started another refugee work while painting the acrylic "Refugees in Flight" -- "Refugee Women," oil pastels on 8"x10" drawing paper ... progression posted here.

Step three:
I believe it's completed

Second step
Figuring it out:

First step:
I might go mixed media with this and use marker and pencil too:

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

BRIEF THOUGHTS ON ART AND DESIGN

BRIEF THOUGHTS ON ART AND DESIGN: From a time with film and photographic art, to now with work in painting and drawing again – on the edges, if there is an edge - I like to think about two things – enframing and mystery. Design itself, so long in dominance in the arts, doesn’t do it for me, in itself or for itself, no matter how wondrous the technique, unless what’s going on in a work takes me outside the frame.

DERRIDA VS GOTTLIEB: I’m drawing on Jacque Derrida’s notion of “enframing,” which in a painting is the thing within it that takes one out of the boundaries of the physical work and resets the frame (or disappears it). Mystery, an intangible, is something personal, and maybe I’ll try to explore what I mean by that sometime, but one thing I can say is that it’s part of what makes the frame disappear and brings about an internal vista.

I recall in the ‘60s looking at Adolph Gottlieb’s work at MOMA wondering when the mystery and that which would move me within the work would happen – even with perhaps understanding the notion of the alchemist in his work – Barnett Newman too. The lot of them: Rothko, Motherwell, Kline but not Diebenkorn and his versatility of approaches to a “subject.”

THE BLAUE REITER: Just to briefly sum up what I think I’m getting at, I think Kandinsky, Marc and others from this movement have a closer affinity to capturing the re-enframing and mystery I feel I want to see in a work that uses design as a key element and focus.

This is only sketchily developed, obviously ...


I’m not thinking about some of the extremes Francisco Goya went to in his paintings, but I think the so-called fine art of painting and drawing needs to open more spaces to address the impact of social and human rights issues ... I feel so passionate about this. I don’t know where that passion is coming from but it doesn’t matter; what matters is that it be expressed.
 

As a footnote – my youngest daughter is an extremely knowledgeable published art historian Ph.D. who also runs an MFA program in The Netherlands and so I write this understanding that that intelligence might descend on this and have a response that would open my eyes wider. But for now, this is it.

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

EMERGING - REFUGEES AND CHILDREN IN FLIGHT - ACRYLIC

Emerging - refugees and children in flight - acrylic on canvas - 16"x20" - progressions as I paint it ... ascending to the latest ...

Yet changing

It's taking on its form and mood ...

First day ...

 

 

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

REFUGEE MAN & CHILD - OIL PASTEL SKETCH ...

Refugee man and child, oil pastel sketch, 8"x10" - feeling out an acrylic painting style as well for a larger representation of refugees, maybe a series ..

 

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

 

Refugees have a special meaning from when my spouse and a small group I organized in the late 90s accompanied a bus full of surviving refugees of a massacre in southern Mexico back to the massacre site to commemorate their 45 lost community members, slain by paramilitaries ...

"THE EDICT" - ACRYLIC PAINTING FEELS COMPLETE

Not sure whether it's "finished" but formally "The Edict" feels complete - acrylic on canvas, 16x20 ... may touch it up later, needs to talk back to me.

 

(c)  2014 Wes Rehberg