Tag Archives: green

Green Flash

Green Flash, circa 2010
Green Flash, circa 2010

I created “Green Flash” about 2010 for a show at the Corpus Christi Art Center.  A “green flash” is what occurs just as the last bit of the sun sinks below the horizon.  Because of various optic principles involving color, the bending of light, and the make-up of the Earth’s atmosphere, flash of green light occurs frequently (if not always) as last bit of the sun disappears from view.  I chose to represent this phenomenon with a minimum of representation.  I was living in south Texas at the time, which is very flat, so I chose to portray this as it might appear along the south Texas horizon.  Red, of course, is frequently the dominant color of sunsets, so both the sky and Earth are red, though in different shades and, also of course, it is great for bringing out green.  The green is the last bit of the sun and the short, black lines represent the south Texas scrub, which is mostly mesquite.    The paint is acrylic and the canvas size is 30″ x 40″.

Distance

Distance by Phil Slattery
Distance
by Phil Slattery

 

This came from a photo of a mannequin in San Diego I took about 1995 with a 35mm camera.  At the time I wanted to catch a mood of distance between people, not necessarily lovers, but between people who had some connection be it relatives, lovers, friends whatever. Some years later after I bought Photoshop Elements 2.0, it was one of the first photos I toyed with when exploring Photoshop.  I wanted still to capture that feeling of distance and toyed with several features until I produced this. The various subtleties of gray and white and the odd browns and greens add to the feeling along with the mottled look (like a very grainy photo) and, of course, the vacant, hollow eyes and the neutral feeling from the lips combine to make this a quite poignant work.