Frank Kallop - Artist Statement
When Victor Grasso asked me to participate in Brine I was in the middle of a series of still life paintings for my July solo show at SOMA. He told me the theme was “Ocean,” however I wanted to interpret that.
My first thought was delight at being asked to join such august company as the artists whose work you see on these walls.
Some of my still lifes had been about food and my second thought was about the bounty that comes from the sea. I went to my local fish market, bought some fish and got to work. I decided to compose with dramatic lighting an entire meal; two fish on a gold rimmed platter, bread, garlic, onion and a teapot. Due to their rapid decay which causes them to lose their luster, the fish had to be painted rapidly and with vigorous brushwork in one session. I was able to take my time with the rest of the set-up but continued, for cohesion, with the same manner of brushwork. Once finished, I was very happy with Still Life with Two Fish.
I had another thought, something that had been percolating in my mind for a while. A painting in a style that I call “Imaginations and Inventions,” a sort of autobiographical painting from the long period in my life when I painted in a surrealist style. I settled on an image of a diver wearing antique diving gear on the ocean floor, probing a brain coral with a pointed spear. I wanted to paint it monochromatically to mimic the look of being deep underwater and I wanted bubbles. Carl Jung said that water represents the subconscious. The brain coral, a brain; the diver, me--Probing the Depths of the Subconscious.
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