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The first painting of 2018 is companion of Tempest, noted below. Central Asia is the title. Is the wavy line at the bottom an upper river bank or the river itself? The ambivalent scale of the work – close by or distant?– reflects how distance estimating by sight in a desert expanse is often mistaken.

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The third of the quartet group of Zen sumi-e inspired painting is Plunge. The work seems to be a meeting of Korean Zen painting and 20th-century Modernism.  The frame (plywood is used) is integral to the painting; such is the case in the other works of this group.

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Fire on The Mountain was inspired by Japanese painter Takehiko Sugawara's increasingly abstract series of works on an old cherry tree that I viewed at the recent SF Art Market and also via the internet. A Monterey cedar was my own model.

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Another East Asian style painting is Morning Pines, which is influenced by Hasegawa Tohaku's Pine Forest from the 16th century.

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A different mood and composite structure is the September painting Retinal River.  Conceived as suggestively scientific, the work can be viewed symbolically Jungian, scientifically Zennist, just playfully atmospheric, purposefully cryptic, techno-socially commentative, or metaphoric and philosophical. From the here-now practical perspective, it was developed from absence of inspiration plus need of a project. The retinal image is a mosaic that the brain unites in coherence. Similar passage cellular arrays of the body include the ciliated throat lining and the intestinal  cells with finger-like microvilli.  The painting image's home is the Metaphysics / Philosophy group of the City Synthesis series. The image source is Oregon's Columbia River gorge in happier, fire-free days.

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Starting 2017 is a painting of Market Street in San Francisco observed from above the Castro on Twin Peaks. The Living Night conveys the welcoming, vibrant aspects of the city that extend into the evening. While based on a photograph, the color palette is altered to emphasize a living, holistic city-organism. Night hides the flaws and dreariness of a city, and although it also obscures the joys of architectural detail, the nightscape takes on the magic of a bioluminescent landscape. (The color balance and tone do not reflect the actual painting; the sky, for example, is far darker.)

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Debra Jan Bibel

MORPHOLOGIES:
An Exploration, An Evolution

Fresh Paint

This page features the latest v0isual compositions, completed in 2017 and early 2018. Because the page will change with each new opus, monitor the page periodically. The images may also be found among the galleries.

NOTE: All reduced and overly processed images fail utterly in even hinting at the quality and the true colors of the actual paintings and their effect on the viewer.

 

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Memories of Brazil is directly taken from a cropped photograph Bibel took in Paraty, relaxing on a hammock a sultry afternoon. Other than the inkwork Ambiguity, the spindle-shaped palm leaves is a morphological pattern she has not previously painted. A psychological aspect is recognized, fear or repulsion grounded in evolution, as the series of long extensions recall centipedes, spiders, and long-legged insects. On the other hand, they also resemble the teeth of a comb.

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Tempest is the final painting of 2017 and is modeled on Study 3 of Form & Flow  Despite the hue differences, the painting background is in confluent Naples Yellow.

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Stacy's View is that of Manhattan, and it is derived with her permission from a snapshot made by jazz vocalist Stacy Sullivan. This one I am keeping for myself, at least for now.

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A somewhat different painting, Wind of Change, has autumn leaves against tree shadows on dark earth coupled with the modern building by architect Zaha Hadid. Located in Baku, Azerbaijan, it is the Heydar Aliyev Center. Photography and computer processing failed to depict the red veins on the leaves. 

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Three different paintings are comparatively simple works, for a change, depicting railway bridges. They are part of a triptych I've been working on the railroad. Go Forth is the one at the Firth of Forth, Scotland (the Firth is akin to fjord); another is based on the curved and banked one in Rafsanjan, Iran, Desert Traverse; and Tunnel is derived from a stock photograph of a trestle bridge.

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Fire on The Mountain  (2018)
36 × 24 in. [canvas]; 42 × 287 in. [overall]

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Morning Pines  (2018)
36 × 18 in. [canvas]; 36.5 × 18.5 in. [overall]

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All images are copyright by Debra Jan Bibel.  Permission for use in electronic media or for printed reproduction is required. 

Links to this website are permitted only if artist identification is included in direct view, not just within source code.