Updated: 10/6/2023
Status: Ongoing (2 more planned studies)
American photographer William Eggleston is renowned for his pioneering contributions to the world of photography, particularly for his role in elevating color photography to the realm of fine art. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1939, Eggleston's work challenged the prevailing black-and-white photography conventions of his time.
In the 1970s, he gained widespread recognition with his groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which marked a turning point in the acceptance of color photography as a legitimate artistic medium. Eggleston's use of vibrant, everyday subjects - from mundane street scenes to ordinary objects - imbued his work with a sense of poetry and heightened reality. His masterful use of color and composition transformed mundane moments into compelling, visually striking images.
In my art studies, I had been practicing by painting smaller 11x14 inch pieces for the last two years. Painting at that size has been perfect to learn the medium, but I have found I often fail to simplify the image and end up painting far too tight trying to get every little detail in. To challenge this behavior, I decided to go the other way and paint larger, hoping that with the additional canvas real estate I can relax and take on some more complex compositions.
So I grabbed a pile of 32” x 24” stretched canvases to paint my take on six of my favorite William Eggleston photographs.
The only limitations that I put on myself for this excercise (beyond the canvas format), was the use of a limited pallet so I wouldn’t over-complicate my color mixing. In the process, I found myself liberally playing with the composition of all the studies - either simplifying them so I could translate it to an oil painting, removing or adding elements, or in on-case choosing to flip the image around (just because). While the intent wasn’t to recreate the photography verbatim, I didn’t want to loose what I *think drew William’s attention to take the photo in the first place. I feel like I was able to achieve that and had a lot of fun.
While I have two more studies in this series to go, the first four have both taught a lot of new painting lessons (yeah) and highlighted weaknesses that I want to get better at. Looking at the results thus far, I’d say I’m far away from capturing that wonderful 1970’s patina found in William’s photographs. I’m just not there yet. That said, all four of them are framed and hanging on my wall as is. Im happy with the effort and end results.
On the next two studies, Im going to adjust my pallet and focus on improving hard/soft edges.
Happy painting!
