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Pandemic Paintings Deep Dive: Sat Like a Stone.

1/31/2025

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Made two paintings after the namesake of the new show, Good Air, Sat Like A Stone has always served as it's opposing companion.

Similar in size and composition, where Good Air is light, open, and hopeful, Sat Like a Stone is dark, heavy, and foreboding. Where the figures in Good Air have life and movement, the figures in Sat Like a Stone are cold and stoic. Even the landscape is dark and abstract, with just a ring of red representing the sun, or moon. 

Is this an eclipse? Armageddon? The remains following the rapture? The power in this painting, especially in comparison to good air, is in it's monolithic weight, overwhelming darkness, and bone-chilling cold. Whatever the circumstance, we can all remember a time there was nothing to do but curl up and shiver.
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Pandemic Painting Deep Dive: Cards with Ghosts.

1/24/2025

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This very well might be my favorite of the series. It established a new level of darkness that I don't think I had ever explored before and the gaze of the central figure has stuck with me ever since its creation. I chased the feeling of this painting most of the rest of the series, mostly with solid results, but I'm not sure anything quite made it back to this level of success, simplicity and starkness.

I think this encompasses the overall melancholy of the lockdowns well. Once fear subsided we were left adrift; the world didn't stop but much of what we considered important did. Social events were canceled, friends were dangerous, even being outside was discouraged by some. The people we once relied on drifted into a digital landscape and we were left working alone, staring at screens, all while people insisted we were in this together. 
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There was a reserved acceptance; we were resigned to our fate. Nobody liked what was happening but we also just kind of largely accepted there was no solution to be found and no reason to seek it. 
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Pandemic Painting Deep Dive: Good Air

1/17/2025

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I feel a bit like a broken record, but I guess I'm a fan of my art; this has always been a favorite from the series and think it stands out both because of its size (54x62) and, like Sharing Lunch, due to its relative simplicity. The figures came together without fuss; the setting sparse; the overall atmosphere was immediately enchanting.

Though it wasn't included in the first show at MARN, Good Air is the namesake of the second showing of the collection and, in my opinion, a standout member of the series. The texture within the color blocks seen up close counters the overall emptiness when viewed from afar and the minimal but emotive figures create just enough interaction and tension to develop a narrative. At a time when my horizons were confined to a 10x20' room, Good Air truly brought a fresh breath of it.
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For me this painting is about observation, jealousy, and fear. Two figures sit in the foreground, seemingly contorted and folded upon themselves. They gaze out at an endless horizon where the land seems to disappear into the sea, and the sky is nearly undistinguishable from the water. A fence-like structure seems to float or peer above the water's surface like a mirage while two anonymous figures seem to go about there business, unconcerned with the watching figures and abstracted landscape. All I can think of is how much the seated figures desire to be out in the water, letting clothes blow in the wind, standing comfortably and freely in the open; instead they remain in place, questioning their surroundings, envying the freedom of those before them whose only measurable difference was acting on desires or duty rather than succumbing to melancholy.

Check out more about Good Air HERE

And RSVP to the opening on facebook HERE
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Pandemic Painting Deep Dive: Sharing Lunch

1/15/2025

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Sharing lunch was, I think, #3 in the series, but immediately became one of my favorite paintings I've ever done. I would never call myself a minimalist; I'm far to scattered and fidgety for that; but my attraction to this painting lies in its simplicity and intrigue despite a lack of overt messaging or chaotic symbolism.

I envy minimalists as, while I like minimal art, it feels lazy, to me, in the moment. I may "like" something minimal but it's not what organically comes from my studio sessions. My minimal art is pleasant, but I often want more than that. Sharing Lunch is an example of one of my favorite kinds of my own painting; I am struck but the color compositions and interaction (or lack there of) of the figures, yet the painting is largely devoid of specific details; An energy exists, but it's as much tension as action; there's a overall sense of melancholly and serenity, but one that could be broken at any moment now that you, the viewer, has arrived on scene.

Inspired by "The Dance" and "Music" by Henri Matisse in that I wanted to create a simple green landscape with bold, red figures,  but I wanted to juxtapose the joyfulness with the current lack of social interaction. It also felt apt to depict an age-old subject matter, the meal, through the momentary lens of social distancing.


In all I wanted to capture the strange melancholy feeling of the moment; the unsure nature of what was coming, what we would be called to do, and what would damage our already potentially fragile social bonds.
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A feeling of despair seemed to fall like a gentle mist, and, though we were not yet assured of its arrival, everyone felt a wave of dread pass between their optimism and the coming days. 

Sharing Lunch is available for purchase. Contact me directly at [email protected] for information. Get more insight into the Pandemic Paintings by clicking the "Pandemic Paintings" drop-down from the "Paintings" tab at the top of the page. 
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    Daniel
    ​Fleming 

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  • Paintings
    • The Pandemic Paintings >
      • @ MARN 2022
      • @ THELMA 2025
    • Small SCALE >
      • The Grid
  • Wet Paint
  • Shop
    • Paintings
    • Prints and Books
    • Black Forest Art
    • Illustrations
  • ON VIEW
    • Archive
  • Contact