So, what were we thinking when we bought this, out first oil painting ("Aft" 1997 10" x 8")? Well, it was less than $1k (much less) so it was in the right price range. And, you know, I was about to say that we weren't thinking about "collecting" but then I guess we were since there were, of course, many other of Veerakeat's works (see previous post for more info about him) at higher prices that we would have liked to have purchased had we the funds. So, in the sense that we desired one of his works for our (as yet nonexistent) collection we were "collecting" already and not simply filling space. This should have been clear to me since, well, 10" x 8" ain't really wall filler material. Then again, as I think back, originally this work hung in the 600 sqft place we started out in and it was hung in a very prominent location. So wall filling wasn't so important after all.

Why did we want one of his works? I think it 's the energy of his work. He brings a sense of movement to the everyday (and this is actually one of his few figurative pieces) that we love. He's also very good, IMHO, at rendering light. As a sailor, that's how it looks on the water. The perspective also gives me a sense of how it feels. I can almost feel the deck underneath me when I look at it. I also found it very cool that he first painted the canvas red (especially since it's a water piece) and then painted over that. I had never heard of that before, although I've seen it since.

Anyway, with this painting began our love affair with Veerakeat's work resulting in our owning 9 paintings, many of them small ones like this (I dream of a day the SFMOMA asks us to lend them ours for a "Petite Veerakeat" exhibition), and one 4' x 4' that I'll profile another time.

UPDATE
I'm told that the proper way to list art dimensions is HxW, so that would make "Aft", shown above, 8x10.