In November 2012, I began work on a painting series based on an entire opera: Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin', based on the eponymous poem by Alexander Pushkin.
My longtime relationship with opera often takes the form of something like a wholesome obsession, if such a thing exists; many times I have been passively hearing a piece of music when a note or phrase reaches out and grips me with the force of discovery. When this happens (and I have learned to hunt for it a bit, too), I start studying--who wrote it, who has sung it, when it was first performed, what different productions look like: I hum, I imagine things, I have crazy dreams, and I want to paint myself in.
I have been incorporating text, mostly musical, into my paintings since 2010 (for examples see website). As an opera devotee, it was inevitable that I quickly started searching through lyrics (or libretti) as source material--thanks to the internet, you can find complete scores online if that's what you like to look for! This process started out in small experiments, taking bits and pieces of arias as I worked out the kinks of transferring the shapes of language to canvas. It has always been crucial to me to use typefaces for words rather than handwriting them--not to say that I never will, but rather that, for now, paint expresses all the gesture I need and the rigidity of a printed font provides the right kind of structure to interact with.
Equally inevitable to the search was that at some point, the initial snippets grew in proportion; as I refined my methods of applying text, my concepts grew more encompassing. Alongside double-panelled works of duets and huge canvases of only one song each, I struggled with the limitations of my studio and, more profoundly, with the encroaching realization that these excerpts were not fulfilling what I had in mind.
So: to make an entire opera--but which one? Onegin. Easy! Well, yes and no. Romantic version: I hadn't truly delved into it yet but knew I loved it from afar. Summarized explanation: it had enough narrative content and musical complexity to hold my interest for as long as I guessed it would take for me to finish the 15 sections I've broken it into.
Not long after I commenced what I started referring to shorthand as "my Onegin project", the ultimate interpretor of the role (in my opinion, a certain white-haired Russian baritone), walked by on the street, and it occurred to me that it would be nice to share with someone else to whom the opera and its character are also very significant, what I have been laboring at in my own way, in its honor.
And since, Mr. _______, it is unlikely our paths will cross so opportunely again, but also because I have no idea when all these works will be seen together in order in a physical space, I present, to the ether: My Onegin Project.
My longtime relationship with opera often takes the form of something like a wholesome obsession, if such a thing exists; many times I have been passively hearing a piece of music when a note or phrase reaches out and grips me with the force of discovery. When this happens (and I have learned to hunt for it a bit, too), I start studying--who wrote it, who has sung it, when it was first performed, what different productions look like: I hum, I imagine things, I have crazy dreams, and I want to paint myself in.
I have been incorporating text, mostly musical, into my paintings since 2010 (for examples see website). As an opera devotee, it was inevitable that I quickly started searching through lyrics (or libretti) as source material--thanks to the internet, you can find complete scores online if that's what you like to look for! This process started out in small experiments, taking bits and pieces of arias as I worked out the kinks of transferring the shapes of language to canvas. It has always been crucial to me to use typefaces for words rather than handwriting them--not to say that I never will, but rather that, for now, paint expresses all the gesture I need and the rigidity of a printed font provides the right kind of structure to interact with.
Equally inevitable to the search was that at some point, the initial snippets grew in proportion; as I refined my methods of applying text, my concepts grew more encompassing. Alongside double-panelled works of duets and huge canvases of only one song each, I struggled with the limitations of my studio and, more profoundly, with the encroaching realization that these excerpts were not fulfilling what I had in mind.
So: to make an entire opera--but which one? Onegin. Easy! Well, yes and no. Romantic version: I hadn't truly delved into it yet but knew I loved it from afar. Summarized explanation: it had enough narrative content and musical complexity to hold my interest for as long as I guessed it would take for me to finish the 15 sections I've broken it into.
Not long after I commenced what I started referring to shorthand as "my Onegin project", the ultimate interpretor of the role (in my opinion, a certain white-haired Russian baritone), walked by on the street, and it occurred to me that it would be nice to share with someone else to whom the opera and its character are also very significant, what I have been laboring at in my own way, in its honor.
And since, Mr. _______, it is unlikely our paths will cross so opportunely again, but also because I have no idea when all these works will be seen together in order in a physical space, I present, to the ether: My Onegin Project.
* a brief epilogue:
1) If you want to see the painting by itself, click on it.
2) The white margin around some of the paintings is the un-stretched canvas it was painted on--this means that those paintings can be rolled up like a poster. Others, without a white margin like the one above, are stretched around a wooden frame.
3) I will update this blog as I near the completion of the series, so stay tuned...If you have any questions about the works, please email me: mmdigrazia@gmail.com
4) Thank you, спасибо, and grazie for looking!
