Transitions Painting

Transitions is a series of 60 canvases painted over a ten year span, arranged in a visual diary of the artists life creating one large painting. This painting is approx. 7 feet by 25 feet. It is composed of Acrylic and mixed media on hand stretched canvas. My first impression of transitions had to be WOW! I had the rare opportunity to view this painting during the exhibition “Shut up and Paint” held at the Aurora Gallery in the trendy Chelsea art district in Manhattan during the Summer of 2004. I have visited the artists’ studio numerous times during the creation of this painting and never really understood it until now. The painting is actually composed of sixty smaller canvases, and then assembled aesthetically into smaller groups of six. Those groups of six canvases are then joined together to form the whole. Here is an excerpt from the artists statement; “Allan Linder created Transitions as an experiment to explore an idea over a period of ten years. This exhibition was the first time the panoptic painting Transitions has been completed and on display to the public. The artist painted only one group of six paintings each year as a visual diary of his life and the times that we live in, which I think he achieved very well. This brings a poignant question to mind, what happens to someone in a ten year span? Everything! People move, change jobs, relationships, friends etc… All of these things are captured in this painting, and more. I can’t really say that it encompasses one subject matter or even uses one style of painting. By the artists own words, he used every conceivable technique he knows in the creation of this artwork. He painted one group of six canvases entirely with his fingers, and another with only the tube of paint as a tool, and yet another without touching the canvas directly with his hands. This approach leads to some fascinating and truly unique elements of this great work. Just looking at the colors alone directs ones eye to dart around the canvas from edge to edge picking up bits and pieces of images, detail, which seem like an endless process while each time finding something new to cherish. The eyes never seem to rest in any one location for too long. Once your eye traverses the entire space occupied by this large compilation of images, you begin to see the details. The artist patiently and lovingly created each of the sixty canvases one by one capturing a moment in time from his life, his thought process, symbols, an idea, dreams or maybe even a nightmare. Particularly interesting to me are the first six grouped paintings in the upper left corner. Working as the artist works, from the bare canvas forward adding layer after layer of paint until the elements of the painting achieve a level of transparency utilizing analogous colors to highlight an area of interest or emphasize a theme. There are six egg-shaped images, one on each canvas varying in size, color and relationship to one another. Upon those egg shaped images, are a multitude of superimposed, hand painted symbols and shapes that are highly detailed and synonymous to this architectural feast. Starting with a prominent blast of paint from the center of the first canvas of what appears to be electrically charged particles in violet extending outward to form a bubble of energy surrounded by stars and black space. The eye is drawn to the center of the bubble which upon closer inspection consumes this shape with a middle-aged bearded Greek philosopher, propping himself up on a stack of books. His eyes are closed, which evokes a feeling of trance and serenity rather than sleep. The painting of the philosopher is lucid and ghostly giving the viewer the impression of a dream or a projection. From the middle of his forehead sprouts a nude woman from the knees up, her hands are posed in a way that was famous for artists to paint and sculpt throughout Europe in the fifteenth century. Her pose resembles The Apollo Belvedere, a revered marble sculpture re-discovered in the fifteenth century. The original was cast in bronze and made between 325 and 350 BC by the Greek sculptor Leochares. Below the phantom philosopher sits a more tangible bearded man in the classic yoga Padmasana or lotus position. I only say more tangible, because the impression I see is more three dimensional in nature, not as ethereal like the Greek philosopher. The physical techniques of yoga are the stepping stones to meditation, and this bearded man clearly appears to be meditating and projecting the images of afore mentioned philosopher and the woman that is emanating from his forehead. All of these images form a visual protective shield around a cobalt blue silhouetted profile of a man’s head with his eyes open. The painting adjacent to this canvas is of a Buddha type figure painted in a very graphic style emphasizing the chakras, which are lit up in contrast to their surroundings. This painting has an intense sense of unity and rhythm, where some of the other canvases need more interpretation before one combines these images together mentally. Consequently, the Buddha figure is projecting a vine like coil from his forehead, out of the area of the third eye used in meditation as a focal point. This vine of life extends across six additional canvases, looping, snaking and zigzagging, intertwining them all together until it terminates at the bearded figure in the lotus position. The tale or end is actually the beginning of a dragon’s head which is billowing fire to no avail as the bubble of protection warns off this advance. The vine progressively changes from a painting of energy to a painted image of growing plants and leaves with transparent figures of animals and insects of various species outlined in white acrylic running along its length. Inside the vine is a very subtle human DNA chain. Keep in mind that my opinion is of only the first six canvases in this series of sixty, the intense and somewhat overwhelming study of the images of this aggregate painting could fill an entire volume if not more. After I had made my own mental interpretation of this great work of art, I had the very fortunate opportunity to ask the artist what he was painting with the first six canvases that he so eloquently combined together. His response was simply “fusion.” Needless to say, I was perplexed by this statement and asked him to elaborate. His brow furrowed in the middle of his forehead, and then he smirked. “I imagined what it would be like if I could stand in front of an atomic explosion, and witness an atom splitting without closing my eyes.” He said. “If I could be unaffected by the blast and just watch the changes that would occur, I imagined that the tremendous release of energy would make this space electric and grow to great size, and then just as it expands, suddenly it folds in on itself creating this immense vacuum and ultimately an enormous release of energy which we have all seen in those old black and white films from the nuclear tests of the 1950s.” “This idea of splitting an atom made me think about the return to my very roots, or fabric of my existence, becoming almost elemental in nature.” He said. In conclusion, the beginning of this painting starts with a bang much like the theory of our own universe. The narrative and graphic style of vivid imagery combined on these canvases reach an apogee somewhere in the middle with a grand finale at the end. The amalgamation of these canvases incorporates the same energy of the first six, and ultimately advance the viewers eye to draw ones own outcome through various stages of implied emotions, symbolism, and perspicuous use of color.

Painting:Mixed Media on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:240 W x 80 H x 2.5 D in

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