Analysis of Still Life with many Objects

Martha Hayden

Analysis of Still Life with many Objects, continued

Diagonal and Pyramidal shapes

Movement of large planes

I don’t paint by plan; I do set up still lives, often the same objects over and over, but in different situations. I like a separation between objects and a play of light. The light needn’t be and isn’t constant; it comes and goes and I use what I like best. This painting has an afternoon light, once that was established, I worked on it only in the afternoon. When I see a complex of colors and shapes that I enjoy, I paint that. I am familiar with the objects, I have used them all many times, but I try to see them with an “innocent eye” as if I’ve never seen them before. In a new configuration they acquire a different life.

The start is nothing like the finish, and everything is kept in flux. What appeals to me at the start may not be what I see in the end. In the beginning I saw the little sculpture and the blue bottle as part of a blue streak vertically bisecting a yellow painting. But, as I worked, that became simplistic and I found (and that is key, found not superimposed) other, better ideas. I always think in terms of creating space. Space is created through relationships of colors and the planes that bear them. The eye will notice shapes and colors that are similar. Thus the bottle and little figure can be seen together, the distance between them (marked out by the horizontal yellow base) sensed, while concurrently, the alignment of the two forms emphasizes the surface of the picture itself.

explanation continued

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