Ironing seems quite a good subject to paint. Degas did it, Picasso too. I borrowed specifically here from a Milton Avery, a rather untypical one of a naked woman ironing....
Ironing seems quite a good subject to paint. Degas did it, Picasso too. I borrowed specifically here from a Milton Avery, a rather untypical one of a naked woman ironing. An uncomfortable thought: Burning hot metal, bare flesh. With the subject of ironing there are certain visual opportunities with cloths, and certain gestures of figures, not too much movement. And there is steam. (Avery doesn’t do steam). Steam is ephemeral, drifting and dreamy against the solid. I love painting steam and smoke. (Smokers are often dreamers, no?) The smoke here was done by trailing paint into varnish and then turning the painting upside down to let gravity do the work. Smoke and steam are well served by painting, paint able to make some equivalence to the substance, or lack of it. Cinema revels in smoke/steam most of all.