Lee Tracy

Posterous :: an active visual archive

Hybrid, 70” x 80” oil on canvas

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Hybrid ©1991 70” x 80” oil on canvas

This painting captures the time when there was wind of new scientific roads. Cloning, gene engineering, DNA modification, and all the technology used to transfer and combine different sources of cells, plant or animal, to create something new.  I painted a horse being held immobile in a sling. He seems to have three heads either resulting from an experiment, or denoting terrified movement.

This painting is in the world. 

PROJECT: My history of painting
There is a box slides of my early paintings, works created while I was in my 20s and 30s, that I am scanning and sharing now.

Hunters, 90” x 101” oil on canvas

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Hunters ©1991 90” x 101” oil on canvas

I first learned of hunters when we moved to Maine. We lived on the backside of a small mountain, down a dirt drive that hunters with guns slung on their backs would use to access the woods. We heard stories of accidents and people being shot. Not everyone wore orange. 

At the time, I was reading Rape of the Wild by Andree Collard with Joyce Contrucci.
This is my first huge painting even though there are several underneath this one. Today, the painting is in storage.

PROJECT: My history of painting
I am scanning slides of my early paintings, works created while I was in my 20s and 30s.

Pothole, 74” x 61” oil on canvas

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Pothole ©1991   74” x 61”   oil on canvas 

One might think that this painting has to do with urban streets and life. To some extend it does, but there is also a Pothole region in the North American prairies.  Pothole Ponds are tiny natural nicks in the earth, caused by moving glaciers, that fill with water and pepper the Midwest grasslands.  These "wetlands" are the breeding grounds of a millions of migrational fowl.  As big farming and housing developments sprout these shallow wet spots are filled in and planted. The lost potholes disturb bird migration. The "remedy" is a chain of manmade puddles placed along our highways. 

This is why I am "into" birds. They saw the land becoming less hospitable way before we did.

This painting hung in my home for some time and is now in my studio.

 

PROJECT: My history of painting
I am scanning slides of my early paintings, works created while I was in my 20s and 30s.

 

 

Mechanism, 70" x 70" oil on canvas

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Mechanism ©1991 70” x 70” oil on canvas

This was my first painting where I stepped back and said "Did I do that?" and "Can I do that?" I can't say that I really knew what it was about, but I do recall thinking about engines and motors. The painting captured my feelings about innovations and how we make marvelous things, yet in some cases we have invented silly things.
This painting is "in the world."

PROJECT: My history of painting
A box of slides sits on my desk. I am going through my painting history and will share the journey here. For years, I have been meaning to do this. Now is the time because I am in my studio working on a new series that I will share in the spring!
Please enjoy these paintings created while I was in my 20s and 30s.

 

 

The Great Spirit gave me my humor...

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The Great Spirit gave me my humor to help me pass over ditches.

26" x 35" Acrylic on paper. ©2004

The paper is repurposed art editions that I designed and printed in 1996 on Arches fine art paper.  These fine art posters are a reproduction of a college of color copies (from slides) of previous paintings - 5 generations.  As I wash over each print with acrylic paint I "pulled out" the imagery that naturally fit into surprise landscapes.
Each work, in this series of 30, includes painted text in script. 
This series represents a time when I started to use the written word directly in my art.
This series has no specific order of reading.  It does capture the complexity of human interaction, acceptance of it, and how to pass through the rough patches.

NOTE: All photos of the art are not professional, rather snapshots taken quickly by me in 2004. Sometimes this happens, making the work becomes more important than documenting.

 

 

 

Yes, the flame is tiny...

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Yes, the flame is tiny but it is not out.

26" x 35" Acrylic on paper. ©2004
Learn more about the series

The Living Flame by Charles Baudelaire

THEY pass before me, these Eyes full of light,
Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise;
The holy brothers pass before my sight,
And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes.

They keep me from all sin and error grave,
They set me in the path whence Beauty came;
They are my servants, and I am their slave,
And all my soul obeys the living flame.

Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic light
As candles lighted at full noon; the sun
Dims not your flame phantastical and bright.

You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done;
Marching you chaunt my soul's awakening hymn,
Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!

A poem discovered and shared by @so_you_know
Thank you!

 

Negative to Positive: a visual record of the artist's mind

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A full room installation of thirty-five brain scans depicting different layers of my brain that are made into (4"x4") light boxes.  Each piece of film has words etched into it - thoughts taken from personal journals of the time. Each light box, with exposed individual electric cords, sits on custom gurneys made narrow and tall. The four walls of the room are draped with a continuous sage colored hospital curtain. (To view all the brain scan light boxes visit Negative to Positive tag.)

In July 2006 the installation was exhibited at The International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. Alan Artner, art critic for the Chicago Tribune, wrote the following:

Review