"WHAT ARE YOU PAINTING?" "GARBAGE." "NO, WHAT ARE YOU PAINTING?"

Move-paper

Recycled-paper-Sasebo-Japan-edge-72

Recycling Paper - Sasebo, Japan, ©Leslie Parke 2008

Yes, I really am painting garbage. I didn't set out to paint garbage. I didn't wake up one morning and say painting garbage would be a good thing to do. Instead, while walking near a friend's house in Sasebo, Japan, I passed the recycling center. In it they were moving bales of recycled paper to prepare them for transport. The image of their surface was striking to me, like a Harnett trompe l'oeil painting, and the structure of the bales made me think of Don Judd's boxes.

Mr_Hultings_Rack_Picture

Ohne Tite Stack - Donald Judd C 1968-69

You see, I didn't see the bales as garbage, but as a comment on art history, part of the continuum of image making. For me it carried everything from Lichtenstein's cartoon paintings, to Jackson Pollock's all-over composition.

Jackson Pollock

Sometime later, on a trip to Maine I took the recyclables to the dump and nearly leaped from the car when I saw bales of crushed cans. Again there was the possibility of trompe l'oeil imagery, but with the crushed metal and shiny lids a new element was introduced - light and the reflection of the surrounding onto the surface of the cans.

Diced Tomatoes, © Leslie Parke 2010

Circles, folds and bands were added to the vocabulary.  So were references to John Chaimberlain's sculpture and Jasper John's Savarin coffee can.

Compacted, ©Leslie Parke 2010

John Chamberlain

Jasper Johns,-SAVARIN-CAN-WITH-BRUSHES-1960

Lichtenstein

I would not disallow a reading of these paintings as an environmental statement, but it was not where I was coming from when I landed on this imagery.