Telecommuters

 

 

Telecommuters Purple Boat

by Cathy Hegman

 

Telecommuters is a series about our dependency on being connected either symbolically or literally.  We seem to thrive when we are connected to people.  We also seem to panic when we are disconnected or lose connection. My cell phone has been the biggest blessing and the biggest curse in my life. I enjoy knowing I am available if someone needs me; but I also resent the fact that people can interrupt me when I am in deep thought or working.  This series revolves around the figure being self sufficient in communication in their world. Each figure has an antennae or semblance of one connecting it to the world.  A completely copacetic existence.   

While working on paintings I am often numbed by the fact that very often I  will fight with myself over how to approach my work with the figure.  I am so in love with texture and surface that very often I find that visceral aspect of painting becomes the crux of my work and often at the expense of detail on the figure or other parts of the painting.   I am compelled to be honest and true to who I am and how my wheels and cogs interlock and function. I find joy in the figure with new eyes each time I paint it,I am looking and delving deeply into how to portray my thoughts; not about not every  figure, but this  particular figure and the environment that it dwells in.  I often get pretty far along in a piece and find it too derivative of another  previously painted work, at that point I  will completely paint it out; because I know if it looks to familiar to me in the early stages, I will be completely bored  by the end of the work  and I will feel I have short changed myself.  In my eyes there is no greater joy killer as an artist than  the boredom born of repetition. 

 

Telecommuters Fish Stackers by Cathy Hegman  detail above  and finished piece below

I don’t use models, or references when I paint. I want the knowledge to come from the recesses in my memory, without the added weight of having to try to portray or compare it to something I have seen.   This series brought a whole new twist to my figures they are more deeply  embedded in their environments and  I chose to give them more fluid details in parts and in other parts breaking them down as geometric shapes that somehow ground them to the flat surface of the painting.  

Telecommuters Adrift by Cathy Hegman  detail and finished piece below.

Telecommuters Adrift by Cathy Hegman

I am always a student looking for a new assignment.  I hope I never lose the sense of wonder about painting and surfaces.

Thank you for reading my blog! I wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year!

 

Take care,

Cathy Hegman

 

Copyright © 2016

Copyright © 2016 Cathy Hegman All rights reserved.

All materials both written and photographed and posted on this site are subject to copyrights owned by Cathy Hegman. Any reproduction, retransmissions, or republication of all or part of any document found on this site is expressly prohibited, unless Cathy Hegman has explicitly granted its prior written consent to so reproduce, retransmit, or republish the material. All other rights reserved.