Artist's Statement IX: double vision and the Bowerbird

So, the second paragraph of my working draft (of my artist's statement) reads like this :

"My work may be strongest when it contains contradictions.  Van Gogh spoke about this: “it is as though one dreamed twice, in two registers … the simplest image is doubled: it is itself and something other than itself.”  I paint here and there, foreground and background. The work is still, but it often refers to movement. I have long described myself as an abstract landscape painter, but I am beginning to draw and paint faint odalisques in those shimmering landscapes.  I paint the world I know against the world I imagine."

I run everything I write by my husband, and he read this and said "can you elaborate?"

Okay, so here is a totally different run at the question:

"The 'Odalisque Series' that I am working on now begins with a base abstract work.  For two or three paintings, I began with a work that I had painted months before and re-painted over parts of the piece, or scraped down portions of paint or collage, diminishing but not erasing the original painting.  Other works have begun with a painting that was painted specifically as a base. The nudes --- taken from well-known works by Ingres, Van Gogh or Matisse, for example, or sketched from life -- are then outlined and painted over the base, lightly, usually in a pale white (or peach or blue).  Then the two parts of the work need to be reconciled, and that takes the most concentration, really.  I have found that I like the contradictions in this work: the figure and ground, the color and line, the figure and the abstract, the studio model (here) and a landscape foreign to her (there).  Van Gogh wrote that an interesting challenge for an artist might be: "if, while painting a cottage, he dreams of a nest. It is as though one dreamed twice, in two registers ... the simplest image is doubled: it is itself and something other than itself."  I am following his suggestion and taking it a step further by revealing both images in paint.  I am also taking Francis Bacon's idea of the moving figure, twisted and heavily colored, against a plain ground, and reversing it, so that the image is plain and the ground shimmers and moves.  This is, I think, a true measure of the way we see the world. I paint the world I know against the world I imagine, and this duality has a real power, I believe."

Better?

And, now, for the artist's statement of the Bowerbird. The male Bowerbird of New Guinea and Australia builds a bower to attract a mate; these are not little round nests, but elaborate structures, sometimes two parallel walls, sometimes curved branches that create a roof. The Bowerbird may "paint" the bower with mud, and he distributes shells, flowers, leaves, and any colored found objects around it. Some bowerbirds can also mimic sounds, like the speech of humans or the sounds of a waterfall.

Here is a photograph of a Satin Bowerbird's bower, from Barry Hatton:

And here is another photo, this from Matt Webster, of a Greater Bowerbird bower:

You should also take a look at a video by Josep del Hoyo, from October 2010, filmed in Lamington National Park in Queensland, Australia:

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/video/satin-bowerbird-ptilonorhynchus-violaceus/close-adult-male-painting-bower-using-beak-applying-