Self portrait with Buckets of Rain

A self-portrait, done in oils on linen, mounted on panel. It's modestly sized, only 18" by 24".
I'm usually clean shaven, but this painting was done during one of my brief bearded intervals.

For me, this painting's about rain and weather, obviously, but also has some of the evocative qualities of a hypnagogic dream. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be raising them or lowering them, and what exactly they signify. And if the buckets in the background have already been handled or have yet to be. The meaning seems to be felt, rather than understood, and recedes in the attempt to describe.

I feel that it's tremendously important not to over-determine the content of a painting, but to leave room for it to breath and for other people to project their own imaginations into it and imagine their own stories. In that way, the painting becomes a gift rather than a command.


(click to enlarge)


Here's a detail. If you click to enlarge it, it'll be almost twice the size of the actual painting! You can see the weave of the linen and specks of stuff in the paint. It's more than I really intended people to see, but it's kind of interesting to see the brushstrokes and and tooth of the surface. It looks like it's painted on burlap, instead of a medium weave linen!

(click to enlarge)