space between

my lovely sister just informed me that my blogs can be a bit informationally dense, so feel free to just follow my blog in order to check out the growth of my work.  don't feel obligated to read unless you are really interested in art.  you have been forewarned...  :)

i've been drawing a lot lately.  i'm really trying to investigate a few specific aspects through these drawings.  these aspects have been points of interest for the past few years for me, and i can follow these threads of interest through my body of work, despite whatever subject matter i was painting.  currently my subject matter are simply various landscapes i see during my walks around everett.  i'm interested in trying to capture a sense of place in them, but that is a secondary focus to my other threads of interest that i am trying to tease out in a much more deliberate fashion than my paintings of the past few years.  i thought i'd take the time here to define what those interests are, as a way of defining for myself some of what i intend to focus on in the coming year that i will spend on a master's course in bath, uk.

i have been interested in positive and negative space in my work for quite a while.  it is a very basic concept of subject and the space around a subject in a painting or drawing.  i started questioning this definition in my sky paintings of 2007/8, where i was only painting the sky, and therefore my paintings had no subject/ figure, so therefore, became the entire subject/ object (yet not in the same fashion as minimalism, due to the fact that i had no intension of my painting simply functioning as an object itself, which is why i painted the sky.  i wanted it to keep its meaning and keep that other experienced world that painters can create).  from these paintings, i moved onto painting the figure while removing parts of the figure and parts of the background, creating holes. the success of these attempts to question what is positive space and what is negative space were certainly not entirely successful, as i am still working on becoming a better painter.  but the drive i have at investigating this question in my work has increased.  aside from the aesthetically interesting possible outcomes, i also attach a metaphorical meaning to this idea, thinking of negative space as more substantial than the integrity of a subject/ object in my work.  this is similar to the idea of life being this ephemeral, illusionary thing we experience, while the only solid, sure things that define a life are its beginning and its end - two un-graspable sureties that are like negative space - at least in my strange mind.

i feel like my work has come back around to a similar place as it was before i left for cyprus.  i am finding myself drawn again to working on toned surfaces.  i like the ability of adding strong light as well as adding darker shades.  it also forces me to focus on tone within the color i add.  but in these drawings (above), as well as some of the figure paintings i did in cyprus, i am using the toned ground as an abstract empty space where the viewer can fill in what they want to exist without me detailing everything.  there is simply the tonal information of the ground and whatever negative shapes that surround and define it's edges.

in my work i try using various ideas to infer objects that are not actually pictured.  i like inferring objects in the viewer's space, as well as places where objects are, yet they simply are not pictured.  i think inference is an interesting way to engage the viewer, as well as myself.

finally, i am interested in using light as an abstracting device as opposed to a way to define and describe form.  i am trying to use light in a way that describes scattered natural patterns and negative space shape.  i am also interested in how strong, direct light can obscure an image, and reflected light can add such intense color to an image.

well, i'd love to hear from anyone on anything i've said, or on the success, or lack thereof, of the drawings above.  a number of people have been unable to post comments for some reason, so if you can't, then just email them to me.  thanks for reading!

Metaphor and Metamorphosis

Well, I'm putting this painting up here, but, like I seem to say about all my work, it isn't done.  But this one really isn't done because there are specific things that bug me about it.  I am putting it up just to get it out there - and if there are any suggestions I would love to hear them! 

 In it, I am playing with how to break up the image - to divide it, and in doing so, hopefully try and break down the inherent hierarchy of importance of 'figure in a random space'.  I guess I am experimenting with how to disintegrate the hierarchy without giving into the obscurity and scholarly disengagement of abstraction.  I've been looking a lot at Peter Doig, a painter who has also attempted this in some of his paintings.  He chooses images that don't necessarily have any personal meaning though, so while they convey meaning to an audience, they are not loaded with meaning for him.  I think I may try this tact next because my work of late has started to come off a bit... 'emo', if you will.             

     So, I also wanted to talk about one of my random ideas that crossed my mind, mostly to get some responses.  I recently watched this lecture on the brain, synæsthesia, and art.  (The full lecture can be seen at   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NzShMiqKgQ).  The lecture was a bit scattered, but there were some very interesting bits.  Synæsthesia is the condition in some people's brains to experience one sensory experience simultaneously with another, ie.  seeing colors when you hear particular sounds or reading the number seven as blue.  He goes on to say that there are many degrees to which people experience this, and that some great artists, poets, and scientists are actually synesthetes (Kandinsky and Hockney to name some painters).  But from there he goes on to discuss what he calls 'metaphorical thinkers'.  I believe many artists think in terms of metaphors.  They might not be synesthetes, but they strongly feel the correspondence of different senses and use it to help them understand the world.  While I don't physically see colors that correspond to sounds, I can certainly empathize with what it must be like, and while I don't involuntarily attach personalities to numbers or colors, I can see how one could.  Sounds definitely can have shapes, stormy weather is angry, and the light on a late summer's afternoon can taste like honey.  In my mind at least.   When you have a good metaphor in your mind to correspond with a feeling or an idea, it seems like a very earnest way to express your thought without using out and out narrative or simply using art to illustrate your concept.  The art actually becomes your idea.  There is a trans-formative experience (as Michael Paraskos might say).   

          So now I've been wondering about everyone else.  I know I've had conversations touching on this with a few close friends, but I'm wondering how many people out there -- if not synesthetes -- would consider themselves metaphorical thinkers, and if so, do you use this way of thinking in your art making?  I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences!   

over-thinking the idea of the concept and other neurotic ramblings

FINALLY!  i have some new paintings up.  its taken way too long, but, they're here now.  as always, i invite all your comments.  if this is the first time you've seen my pseudo-website, check out some of my older posts to see more of my work.  thanks!

biding time  4'x3'

here are a couple of paintings i've done over winter.  i'm not done with them but am loosing steam.  i'll fiddle with them more in the next few weeks.  but they are nearing completion so i included them now anyway.

decision  18"x3'

landscape 3'x18"

i recently came across an interesting passage in a book i was reading, called Zen and the Birds of Appetite, by thomas merton.  it got me thinking...   it reads as follows:

"In our evaluation of the modern consciousness, we have to take into account the still overwhelming importance of the Cartesian cogito ["I think, therefore I am"].   Modern man, in so far as he is still Cartesian (he is of course going far beyond Descartes in many respects), is a subject for whom his own self-awareness as a thinking, observing, measuring and estimating "self" is absolutely primary.  It is for him the one indubitable "reality," and all truth starts here.  The more he is able to develop his consciousness as a subject over against objects, the more he can understand things in their relation to him and one another, the more he can manipulate these objects for his own interests, but also, at the same time, the more he tends to isolate himself in his own subjective prison, to become a detached observer cut off from everything else in a kind of impenetrable alienated and transparent bubble which contains all reality in the form of purely subjective experience.  Modern consciousness then tends to create this solipsistic bubble of awareness -- an ego-self imprisoned in its own consciousness, isolated and out of touch with other such selves in so far as they are all "things" rather than persons."

it struck me how this mode of thinking was reflected in the art world (as well as the world at large, especially the scientific and scholarly/academic worlds, but since i am interested in the art world in this blog, i'll stick to that).
it seems that the idea of the concept (thats redundant! how appropriate..) has become a preeminent concern in the art world today.  the main concern of many artists is not how they will make their next piece or what it will look like, or even if it will transmit a feeling or idea, but it is about the validity of the idea itself.  how will they explain their idea and what will they say if someone disagrees with it.  the artwork becomes secondary to the idea, and in many cases, merely illustrates the artist's explanation.
what does this all have to do with Cartesian consciousness? well, in my experience, it seems that the hyper self-conscious empirical ego, who constantly affirms itself ("I am"), is also in constant need of validation.  while this is secondary to our Cartesian mode of thinking, it seems to go hand in hand with it.  my ego is first self aware and then asks for that observation to be validated.  in this same way, the artist now seems to construct his/ her idea first, feeling a need to form a complete concept, with a defense of their idea, how it should resonate with contemporary society, how he/she will manipulate the references (like objects) they want to make, etc.. -- in a nutshell, you have the hyper self aware "contemporary" artist!  then there is the need for validity in work too, where the artist asks the viewer, critic, and historian to validate them through acceptance of their idea, and not through aesthetic criticism of their work.  this, many times, has led to the artist having talked themselves out of making work because they feel they can't validate their idea, as if the actual activity of art making isn't valid in and of itself.
now obviously im not talking about all artists.  and im also not saying that conceptual art is illegitimate.  im not prone to extremes.  but what i am saying is that perhaps the pervasiveness of conceptual art, as the now-institutionalized mainstream for the (arguably) past 60- 100 years is because it is reflective of our own societal Cartesian neurosis.
so how, as artists, do we then move past the alienating, self-obsessed self-awareness and just make honest genuine work free of self-conscious agendas, and also free ourselves from idea-negating thoughts that eventually cause us to stop working?  well, here is what i've come up with, and it is the reason im still going out into my studio right now and dare to paint figurative, nostalgic-looking paintings.  my conclusion is to focus on art making as a valid contemplative experience -- art making as thought process.  but not just as a metaphor, but truly as an actual way to think.  i am not talking about the other random thoughts that go through my head while i am working, but the actual physical process of working from the initial sketches and images, the color choices, the very act of and engagement with my materials in order to transform them into something more.  how is this a thought process?  well, because i am engaged in it.  i am simply doing -- sometimes struggling and sometimes thinking and always engaged when i am working, and i am making intuitive decisions, and i am following a process that is set out for me but it is never the same twice.  it is a thought process like dreaming or intuition are thought processes.  it isn't necessarily pre-planned and logical, but that is the point -- to rid myself of the hyper self aware, self questioning ego in constant need of validation of what it is doing as worth while and acceptable.  while this may or may not help produce great work (that judgement is left to the viewers), it does help me get myself out to the studio each day, because my priority in making work is not the idea, but the thought process itself.  
there is no point to life; it is found in the living.  perhaps for artists, there shouldn't be a point to the work.  the point lies in the making of the work instead.  and the viewer can then find their own function for it after it has been made.