KAREN HALPERN-ARTIST

Circus Dreams, The Artist's Eye

3/15/2013

 
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This new piece of work was built on the portrait I painted last week of a model wearing striped leggings, a short miniskirt, and a tank top. I posted her in the last blog entry so you would see just the beginning of an idea. As I painted, I began to see her as a past acrobat in a circus, or a clown, perhaps. All this week I couldn't shake this image in my head of how she kept returning to dreams of her past life. As I began to explore the idea, I realized how many artists had painted circus themes, some from reality, some from imagination. Then, they too, became part of the images floating in my head, It consumed me as I went about exploring imagery that might become a part of her imagined past. Below are  some of the details I included in the painting. I loved the involvement with works of great Master's of the past, and I was driven by the need to incorporate them seamlessly into my own painting. SEE BELOW. Click on each to see them enlarged for detail.
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Upper left...Picasso's painting of  circus acrobats, followed by a vintage Barnum and Bailey poster.

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To the right of the model's head is a Chagall painting of the simultaneous events that take place at a circus

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Seurat's painting of the Circus and its acrobat appears above Emmet Kelly the famous  clown's photo, with Renoir's young acrobat/jugglers below right, actual performer's in  their father's circus.

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In the lower right, below the Chagall circus is a part of a circus painting of two young girls, acrobats and jugglers who actually were performers in the circus owned by their father.

2 Comments
Cis
3/16/2013 01:19:49 am

Karen, this art work is wonderful! I loved seeing the great collage work done for the background. Thanks for posting :)

Cis

Reply
Karen Halpern link
3/16/2013 06:16:06 am

Thanks for your constant support, Cis. I hoped you would enjoy seeing those details. I thought many people wouldn't recognize the sources of those images.

Reply



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  • Home
  • Karen's Class Schedule
    • Blogging in Color
    • Southwest Images
  • Portraits and Figures
  • Artist's Bio
  • Exhibitions
  • Solo Exhibitions
  • Corporate & Private Collections
  • Landscape Paintings
  • Cranbrook Paintings, Bloomfield Hills MI
  • Floral Paintings
  • Still-Life Paintings
  • Illustration,Licensing
  • Untitled