elise dodeles art

Where have we been, where are we now, where are we going?

That is a paraphrasing of a series of paintings by Paul Gauguin. I was reading Wild Thing: a biography of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux and saw these paintings by the Post-Impressionist. I had done a small sketch that I was turning into a 30 x 40 inch painting. I saw that the title could be represented by my painting and took it. The St Sebastian is the past, while the full length figure symbolizes what lies ahead, and what is our present. The heads are the spectators that I enjoy putting into my work to represent the viewer. What is going on? they seem to be those of us trying to find out what is happening.

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Painting and Drawing

This is how I want to paint, with the pentimenti. The beauty and poignancy of mistakes is one reason for the power of a work of art. It is why I love looking at drawings, where the thought process is still evident. When I find myself unable to paint it is usually because I am trying to be perfect: an impossible task. If people expect it of you, run.

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Riffing on Reality

While speaking with my mother I noticed she often brings the past into the present with the past being as real to her as the present moment. Her memory issues started me thinking about how different realities are represented in paintings. With the painting I am working on now I am bringing in various images to underpin the idea that many realities may be described in one painting. Since I utilize artworks by other artists to inspire my own, I have used a watercolor landscape for my first layer of reality. This is the dream layer because it is less clearly defined than the ‘realistic’ layer to come next. As in a dream, it is in some places just an outline, barely recognizable. Thus far I am pleased with the result: a dream like reality achieved with thinly applied layers of paint.

Is This Hell? In process, the dream layer, 30 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

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Where I Am Now

Today was the first day I felt I could work in my studio in many weeks. I began this 16 x 20 inch oil sketch. It is a preliminary study for a larger 30 x 40 inch painting I will be making. The figure in the background and the snake in the foreground are taken from a drawing in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum. The dog is Sammie, of course, while the figures are models on the Croquis Cafe website. The composition’s subject is how I see things now. That is rather like hell. However, the presence of Sammie, whom I only added towards the end of the workday seems to indicate I am feeling less hopeless. A good sign.

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From the archives

I updated the paintings page of this website, confining the work to approximately the last seven years so these images had to go. They exhibit my more expressionistic style, and some are painted collages, juxtaposing images from my personal photographs as well as those found in special collections and archives.

oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 2012
oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches, November 27, 2012
oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches 2011
oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches 2011

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