Studio Notes on the Decentered Subject
Dust and Light:
Two inherently antagonistic phenomena folded into each other.
Both primordial sources (matter/transcendence); one fixed and present (describable), one inexplicable and evanescent (descriptive). Separately, they exist within dramatically different potentialities. Without light, time cannot exist. Without substance, space wouldn’t exist. My exploration of the interdependences between dust and light establishes itself in the following thematic pursuits:
What are the bounds between discipline and surrender?
(yes, there is a spiritual as well as material dimension)
This has represented the core of my practice since its inception and my process has leaned heavily on developing an organic relationship between intent and chosen materials.
As a painter formally trained as an architect, my skills as an artist are largely self-taught. Architectonic principles, especially in the emotive use of materials and the reduction of complex systems are my métier. My methods are self-structuring, predominantly unscripted and employ repetitive oscillations between random and determinative gestures. Conscious suppression of personal certitude allows the unexpected to perform a constructive role. My practice therefore, has an unaffected quality. Through restraint, material qualities (dust, water, wax, paper, hard and soft surfaces) become the expressive force in narration. I mix my own colors and make the media and tools I use from scratch --watercolor, pastel, a cold wax medium. While it is not a conscious intent to extend the creative practice to include the actual manufacture of the material used, it’s logical that I would be interested in their genesis and my paintings integrate such knowledge in the pursuit of unmediated visual pleasure.
Self-expression is inevitable, possibly unwanted
“That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm; the experiences that are called “visions,” the whole so-called “spirit world,” death, all those things that are so closely akin to us, have by daily parrying been so crowded out of life that the senses with which we could have grasped them are atrophied. To say nothing of God.” Rainer Maria Rilke
There are quiet moments in my studio, often after a day’s efforts, when I am given to wondering: Why do I paint? I can’t claim it is by volition; if I were to choose a studio practice, it would be sculpture. Secondly, to be a painter is, incontrovertibly, one of the loneliest enterprises one can undertake and I would not recommend it to the faint of heart. Everyone at one time or another will “paint”. It is messy; it is fun. But to attempt to produce an experience that transcends the seductive physicality of paint and surface, an experience that is transformative and possibly redemptive, is immensely perplexing. Each day, you isolate yourself in your studio, submerged in an activity for which there is no common purpose. Paintings are inedible, they do not bear fruit, build cities, or end wars; they certainly were never meant to convenience. Furthermore, ‘to paint’ carries its own measure of human absurdity: you absent yourself, barricaded and adamant, in your studio, in an attempt to communicate, to connect with the very society you are neglecting! And those connections you strive to make are timeless; the dead, the living, the unborn, are all watching patiently.
I have had the opportunity to be confronted with such a transformative experience. Twice. The first (Bathers By A River—Matisse 1909-1917) was enough of an assault on the senses that I knew in a flash my pursuit of architecture was suddenly inadequate and stultifying.
Of course there is joy to be had at moments in the studio; the sublimity of grinding pigment and mixing colors which give back light, the careful, precise construction of the support. These are all moments savored. However, the evolution of a perplexing visual experience from a blank surface is nonlinear and counterintuitive, and becomes a method of exploiting the unexpected without being crushed by the weight of those inevitable failures along the way.
Yet painting has substantial value precisely in its uselessness. It is this absence of purpose at the core of painting that reveals truths about the artist and the audience, place and time. I still have no answer to the question: Why do I paint? I’m beginning to suspect that the question having no answer is the answer to the question.
Trussed issues
Over the years, I have stenciled the following precepts, petitions and personal truths to the trusses in my studio. Some are citations or slightly altered citations of other authors(*). I consider them my studio assistants.
What are the bounds between discipline and surrender——Simplicity is never simple-—-It is better to be silent-—-Painting is like hands stuck in a mattress*-—-The nature of art is never entirely present*—--Ideas go unfulfilled if craft is ignored—--Geometry is the illusion of order—--Painting exists between presence and absence—--Self-expression is inevitable, possibly unwanted—--All bad ideas begin as good ones-—-Much madness is the divinest sense to a discerning eye—--Specificity is bound to craft-—-There are angels in the dust--Chance and randomness trump relativity—--Time is elastic—--There are familiar colors, unfamiliar colors and forbidden colors—--Tell all the truth but tell it slant—--There is no center, just edges—--Painting must do what nothing else can do—--Pools of feelings, hung on walls—--Something there, then isn't—--Adults are pack rats with old and useless emotions*—-- A bad painting is one that vanishes into meaning*—--Absence rescues art from certainty—--The only thing of value in art is what cannot be explained*—--Nature is a haunted house but art a house that tries to be haunted*—--Painting is painting, everything else is everything else*—--Linear time gives birth to fear of death--Forgetting takes time to remember—--Perception of an object costs precise the object's loss*—--Precariousness is essential*—--The truth must dazzle gradually*—--Yellow she affords only scantly*—--The River Agnes—--The landscape of abstraction is an enigma*—--Art, and in particular painting, must remain purposeless—--Throw fish at the sea—--The essence of any thing is subject to continuous incompleteness