Lumi 9 News

Voom

ink on top of digitally manipulated drawing that is printed on canvas

31x32"

© 2011 Lumi 9

This is "Voom". The title and concept of the work came after I started working on the patterning that you can see in the small phone pic that you see below.

I had planned, all along, that I was going to experiment working on top of giclée prints of images, for some pieces for the Kentuck Show (One week left! Check it out before it comes down!).  Like Male,  I had to create a pattern or field that I wanted to print out. But I thought this piece would look better if I drew a small portion of the symmetrical motifs by hand, and then scan that into the computer and see what kind of manipulation I could do to it afterwards.  I originally had planned to let the squarish pattern that formed after connecting the tiles (seen below) keep in the final look of the painting... but I decided to experiment.

I overlaid one of my "masks" and when I flipped on the white color.... it just became clear that the piece had asserted it's overall "look".

I immediately saw Pollocks "The Deep" in my mind when I saw the image above. So I started working from there... while also thinking it was a good time to start running titles around in my mind.

About this time, I was on a kick of watching documentaries about famous artists and I had just seen The Universe of Keith Haring, and there was a short clip of a video work that Haring did where he was saying "Daa-da-da-Daa-da-da-Daaa-Daa-Da-Da" directly into the camera. He went on to explain that this was related to when his Dad had taught him morse code when he was a kit. I thought I would reverse the sex and use inspiration from that to make my painting about "woman".

We often hear the phrase - or maybe not often, but we've all heard before, "Va-va-voom!"

I heard the phrase in my mind because I drew this odd "flame" right in the center of my painting... like a wondering vagabond of black smoke amongst a snowstorm... but I've been keen to get some motor sports references in my work for my brother (he does autobody) and this flame reminded me of the fire on the side of any race car to skateboard. It didn't happen immediately, but at some point the associational machinery led me to "Va-va-voom!".  A phase full of testosterone filled wonder.

And that was it. I knew what I was going to do. I had my title and I knew that I was going to apply the first part of the phrase literally on the canvas in a reorganized sort of morse code, just like Keith did. And that's where I want you to be with this work: thinking about the sound of the phrase, repeating it over and over in your mind as a kind of meditational invitation, while the swirling color and shapes blows it's wind about the stationary black figure confronting your countenance like a goddess.