August Notes - 2026
BLACK IS BLACK
This Color is Loaded
Anish Kapoor, Void Pavillion V (2018). Photo: Nobutada Omote. ©Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved SIAE, 2021.
I started a new series of paintings, wanting to create grungy, dark, almost unpleasant grounds. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but that is where I started. Some of these grounds contained a large amount of black. And you know me, I can’t do anything in the studio without thinking of its possible antecedent. This led me down a black hole (excuse the pun) of paintings that consist only of black, or so it seems. I started with the first all-black painting, which started as a joke. Check out Paul Bilhaud, a member of Arts Incohérents, a wonderfully irreverent group.
I also looked at Malevich, Goya, Anish Kapoor, Ad Reinhardt, Pierre Soulages, and Allan McCollum. I didn’t even get to Rothko or Richard Serra, who I feel I’ll need to add later.
So, not to test your patience, I have put all of the posts below. CLICK ON IMAGE
DISRUPTED WEATHER
Leslie Parke, Presence 72 inches x 48 inches, oil paint and acrylic markers on canvas, ©2026 Leslie Parke
While I was writing about what other artists had done with black, I was covering canvases with charcoal, lithographic ink, metallic paint, enamel paint, and whatever else I could find. If I had had road tar, I might have used it.
ALSO NEW THIS MONTH
What is means to be both the artist and the model.
Artist and Model began as one of the Disrupted Weather paintings. It started with the same black ground and the same idea of disrupting that ground with high-key color. Then I decided to print my face and hands onto the canvas.
FEATURED ART: TURNS OR RACES BY
Turns or Races By, 24 inches x 24 inches, oil and metallic paint and acrylic markers on canvas, © 2026 Leslie Parke