Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Bamboo Mountain, Potato Hill



Bamboo Mountain, Potato Hill
Diptych
Gouache and acrylic on paper mounted on birch panels
12" h x 24" w
2012

Other than The Laundry Maze, I've also started working on my new painting project, Red Bean Paste and Apple Pie, a series of diptychs that will be exhibited in Seattle in September and in Portland in November. The first piece is Bamboo Mountain, Potato Hill, a nostalgic look at one of my favorite foods from when I was growing up in Taiwan (fresh bamboo shoots) and how much I missed it when I first moved here. Both the bamboo shoot and potato are root vegetables that are fairly inexpensive (in the proper regions), and both are very versatile in terms of culinary use.

I did not return to Taiwan for 7 years, and one of the first things my grandmother made for me was bamboo shoot soup!

Here's a shot of how it started. You can see that I'm playing with some ideas that I ended up not using (the drawing of a sprouted potato on the lower right).



The bamboo's cellular architecture and the potato flower are both 5-segmented. And I use this 5-segment structure as starting points. I'm using sacred geometry to denote many things -- the cosmos, the planet, the divider and unifier of the two sides/panels, but also to create a sense of myth and mystery. But it also gives me the pleasure of playing with patterns, which I love to do.

Here it is, fairly far along.



And the finished piece is the top photo.

5 comments:

Michael5000 said...

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really like it. It jumps right onto my personal fingerstothebone top ten. And you know I'm a fan.

fingerstothebone said...

And I'm really, really, really glad you like it!

Catherine Alice said...

WAIT! I like this one even better! OMG! It is amazing to see these pieces after our geometry talk. I really think you are doing some fun and beautiful work.
Catherine

fingerstothebone said...

Hi Catherine!

Thank you! Diane Jacobs and I are having a two person show at Gallery 110 called "Digest This!" and these pieces will be shown then. Hope you can come & visit us then.

fingerstothebone said...

Oh yeah, Catherine, thank you and Bill for the help on making the geometries! I'm having so much fun with them. The next two pieces will have something a little different in the middle, but then I'll be back to the geometries again.