Painting the Moment Before Someone Looks Away
Liepke paints women, mostly in bars, studios, dim rooms. Alla prima on Claessens Belgian linen, wet into wet, palette of gray-greens, dull pinks and blacks. Brushmarks go past the edges of the shapes somtimes. He keeps 20 or 30 canvases going at once and movs between them.
Critics bring up Degas and Lautrec in almost every reveiw, wich is fair, but those two painted cafe scenes and theater interiors with more space around the figures. Pontone Gallery called his world a demi-monde, figures with an insolent self-absorbtion. His paintings are in the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum and the National Academy of Design in New York.
“She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.”
Lord Byron
“I am not resigned, the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.”
Lord Byron, So We’ll Go No More a Roving
“Some truths hide best behind a lowered gaze.”
— Louise Glück
“I am no bird and no net ensnares me, I am a free human being with an independent will.”
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
“What we hide often speaks the loudest.”
— Louise Glück
“A single stare can outlive the words we never said.”
— Louise Glück
“Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air.”
Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
“The world is too much with us, late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much With Us
“Hands tremble where the heart tries to speak.”
– Louise Glück
“I exist as I am, that is enough, if no other in the world be aware I sit content.”
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
People Also Ask
Does Malcolm Liepke paint from live models?
No, he works from photos and sketches. Says a model sitting to long makes the painting go stale.
How does Malcolm Liepke paint?
Alla prima, wet into wet on Belgian linen. Brushmarks are uneven, pallete is gray-greens and muted pinks mostly.
Where are Malcolm Liepke paintings?
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum and the National Academy of Design. Gallery is Arcadia Contemporary in New York.