C W MERTENS

Ladies First

A lot of thought went into Ladies First. Actually, I didn’t think about calling it Ladies First until after I started. The initial idea was to paint several portraits. I thought about what kind of portraits I should paint. I wanted to paint women first. Hence the name Ladies First.

Visually, I had this idea of a mix between the heavy paint and lines in Vincent van Gogh’s paintings, the designs in Alphonse Mucha’s posters, the femme fatale looks of Klimt’s women, the bright colors in Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. 

So with Ladies First, I thought I should be consistent with several elements. One of which is the composition of the paintings. Each portrait is similar with an attractive woman cropped in the center of the panel. On the left and right are wavy lines. I wanted to draw equal attention to the figure and her surroundings. 

Another element is the surface. I wanted the brush strokes to be obvious and a bit random. The paint should be thick and applied heavily. I wanted the finished product to in no way look like a photo. I feel it should be unique and almost impossible to copy. The art should be its own kind.

A third element is color. I tried to balance the colors between the ones inside the contours of the figure and the ones outside. The colors outside the figure give a sense of warmth and coolness to each painting. Also, most of the white is in the face of the figure and each figure is outlined in black. 

Unlike Ladies First, not so much thought went into ...and Gentlemen!  I wanted to create the same set of portraits with the same characteristics as Ladies First.  

The idea would be to combine the to sets of portraits into life partners, lovers, husbands and wives, etc.  In the future, I'd like to experiment with new styles to create "children" from each set of partners.  But let me breakdown the ...and Gentlemen! portraits like the Ladies First set.

Visually, the idea is the same.  It's a combination of the heavy paint and lines in Vincent van Gogh’s paintings, the designs in Alphonse Mucha’s posters, the femme fatale looks of Klimt’s women, the bright colors in Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. 

So with ...and Gentlemen, I thought I should be consistent with same elements. Again, one of which is the composition of the paintings. Each portrait is similar with an attractive man cropped in the center of the panel. On the left and right are wavy lines. I wanted to draw equal attention to the figure and his surroundings.  Which grabs the attention more?  The wavy lines or the attractive person?  I wanted there to be a struggle or conflict of interest here, just like in Ladies First.

Another element is the surface. I wanted the brush strokes to be obvious and clunky. The paint should be thick and applied heavily. I wanted the finished product to in no way look like a photo with a flat surface and smooth lines. Like Ladies First, I feel it should be unique and almost impossible to copy. The art should be its own kind.

Finally, the third element is color.  Again, I tried to balance the colors between the ones inside the contours of the figure and the ones outside. The colors outside the figure give a sense of warmth and coolness to each painting. Also, most of the color white in the painting is in the face of the figure and each figure is outlined in black. 

One final note on the clothes.  With the Ladies First and ...and Gentelmen! portraits I chose different styles fashion.  Some leisure, some sexy, business and the like.  I want to point out my signature in each painting.  It is meant to look like a brand name, like "Craig" by C W Mertens or something like that.  Some of the logos/signatures are hidden by folds or some are in plain sight.  I feel when a painter signs a work of art, it kind of breaks the fourth wall by having the signature sticking out, so I wanted to be a little clever and hide it within the image, being a part of the atmosphere and not separate from it.  

These are places that I have experienced in my life.

The food and drink in my life.

These are some shots from exhibitions I have held or have been apart of.

These are images of the construction of art works in my studio