The Shape of Things

1. A reality TV show

Promotional poster for Face Off, a reality-competition TV show featuring complete
 face/body transformations through prosthetics and make-up, 2011. 

2. A photograph I took in undergrad

Adair Stephens, Other no. 1, Gelatin silver print, 2008.

3. A recent painting

Bruna Massadas, Mother of All, Acrylic on canvas, 2012, 42 x 54 in.

4. A music video

Cropped still from the music video for "Rio" by Duran Duran, directed by Russell Mulcahy, 1982.

5. An older painting

Henri Matisse, Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat), Oil on canvas, 1905, 31 1/4 x 23 1/2 in.

6. A play and movie

Movie poster for The Shape of Things, a play (2001) and movie (2003)
written and directed by Neil LaBute in which a woman slowly and secretly
 "sculpts" a man by convincing him to alter his appearance and personality.

Paint + Fabric

Adair Stephens, Fantasy Boys, 2011, Acrylic on cotton, sewn into pillows and stuffed with rice and polyester fiber.

As painters, it's tempting to think of fabric as simply the support, something to build on top of, to cover up. But it is much more important than that.

We live our lives in fabric. It is on our bodies nearly twenty-four hours a day. We are wrapped in it soon after we're born, and it lines our caskets in death. We sleep surrounded by it, draw comfort from it, have sex on top of it. It is there for everything.

Skin is fabric too. We cut it up and sew it back together. It sags, wrinkles, folds, can be pulled taut. It encloses us, encapsulates the stuff we're made of. We wash it clean, put make-up on it, decorate it with metal and ink. This is what we do: paint over fabric.

But there is also paint inside us.

I want to know what happens when the inside spills out.

Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955, Oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood supports.

A Drawing and a Quote

Adair Stephens, Hera, 2012, pastel on paper.

"Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming.

Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-cressed waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland - white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by."

- Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897

My First Painting

Adair Stephens, Cellmates, acrylic on canvas, approximately 3' x 4', 2009.

I wrote a whole other post about this painting explaining the details, facts, whens, whys, and wheres surrounding its creation, but I’ve realized that those things are not what interest me.  When I think of this painting, I am mostly intrigued by the fact that I threw it away.  Most people say that you should never throw any of your art away, and they are probably right.  But I still throw a lot of things in the dumpster.  My recent attempt to move everything from my studio at CCA into my bedroom in my apartment forced me to toss the things I didn’t like and give away the things I did.  But I’m not saddened by this loss.  Instead, I feel like a weight is lifted.  I don’t want to look at my finished paintings.  I’m excited by the process of making a picture more than the finished picture itself.  Hanging up my own paintings would feel like nailing corpses to the wall.  My advisor in grad school once suggested I go back and work on some of my finished paintings, but that is impossible for me.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

I love Humpty Dumpty because his story is how I work.  I break things down and try to put them back together again in a different way.  You can’t go backwards once it’s happened.  You can cover up the body, but the ghost will always be there.  And the seams will always show.  It is up to you to either put it back on the wall or sweep the pieces into the trash.