For me, the title is often an integral part of the process of making a painting, and in those cases it works in a kind of associative-linking process: perhaps a phrase is repeated while I’m painting, or a song comes to me or I’m listening to a song and that title becomes the title. I try not to name things head on, but somewhat elliptically (like the work itself).
Examples: Earlier this year, I was making paintings which I referred to as state-of-being paintings. I called one Dummkopf as a way to convey the experience of not thinking while painting, a not-thinking-painting, hence a Dumb-head:
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| Dummkopf, 2013 oil on board, 10×8 inches |
I’ve also been working on another series of paintings and in that case they are not so much connected to specific states, but convey something like emotional “atmosphere.” In that situation, I chose to number the works in a somewhat idiosyncratic way:
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| 1.9.31.11, 2013 oil on linen 20×16 inches |