Carl Mehrbach's Art Blog - Making Art

Carl Mehrbach's Art Blog

Complex Plasticity

9/16/2021

Drawing 09·15·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

The question is... What are the limits of complexity an art-maker can create in his effort to immediately engage the viewer, then hold them for the long haul? The long haul is most important. If the viewer does not hang in the viewing, all depth and substance will be missed. The artwork fails if it does not hold the viewer's attention for minutes, then for days, and ultimately for years of return visits; each viewing to look again, to comprehend more, tp feel more, to be rewarded with more.

Yesterday's drawing was an effort to do just as say in the above paragraph. This is a rich, and profound, drawing; complex, filled with plasticity of thought and emotion.

Pushing Knowledge Revelations

9/12/2021

"Find a Man" (2021 No.8, state 5), oil on canvas, 55¼x59½ inches, {"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), "Pensées", 29 (1670)}

Revelations come fast when knowledge is pushed... pitfalls are revealed, limits of knowing hit awareness. This makes for a wearing studio session. Such was yesterday, Here is the result. The painting, "Find a Man", took a definitive turn. This is important.

Execution by Query

9/11/2021

"Find a Man" (2021 No.8, state 4), oil on canvas, 55¼x59½ inches, {"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), "Pensées", 29 (1670)}

The beat goes on till the painting has been executed by query. All questions must be answered before a painting can go to its rest. There are miles to go on this one, "Find a Man". And as I meander my way through its execution I am finding a man.

Saucy or Not

9/10/2021

"Find a Man" (2021 No.8, state 3), oil on canvas, 55¼x59½ inches, {"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), "Pensées", 29 (1670)}

I am taking on the difficult because I can. That huge cloud-like, ocher dominated form, must be handled carefully. A form so compositionally dominate must make total, readable sense. Scale is important here. The round form, on which the dominate ocher form impinges, is critical to the structural integrity of the composition. Centering must be a game well played. I have presented myself with a robust challenge to intellect and emotion. I believe I can handle it. I go, head to head.

No Worries about Special Sauce

9/9/2021

Drawing 09·08·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

It is no time to worry. It is time to do, to make. Take this one for what it is. I question without certifying an answer.

Abstract Abstractor

9/8/2021

Drawing 09·07·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

I am surprising myself. It is fun to abstract visual truth found in my walk-around reality. I do not know if viewers comprehend the twists and turns advanced upon my visual references, the ones that appear in my artwork. Do I care? This is my imagery. I am sending visual messages out into the world. Each viewer will interpret these images differently. Each will comprehend my images based on their own walk-around reality.

Yesterday I enjoyed making the drawing I show today. In its making I performed like a practiced acrobat: muscle memory, intellectual memory, and emotional memory performed as one. During its making I knew right from wrong, a righteous mark from a fallacious one.

A New & Steady Man

9/6/2021

"Find a Man" (2021 No.8, state 2), oil on canvas, 55¼x59½ inches, {"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), "Pensées", 29 (1670)}

My approach in making this painting feels new. I act with a steady hand, a true hand; slowly, introspectively, with caution, deliberation, then with confidence. I know what I am doing. I know what I am making. This is truth-telling in action. The result is true. This is how Art should be made: deep, unexplainable, intuitive knowledge in genesis as real. It is my vision made into visual reality.

The title of this painting, "Find a Man", is apt. "When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal

Anamorphosis is Possible

9/5/2021

Drawing 09·04·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

My road is narrowing. I am walking into a place where centering is true, and anamorphosis is possible. This is a world closer to my kind, to my ability to comprehend concisely, in depth and nuance. Am I not becoming more true to myself? My recent drawings feel true, so they may be true. I am a second guesser. Never do I take an idea to be correct without a considerable body of investigatory repetition, truth tested by research.

Today's drawing feels right and good.

A Two-Day Drawing

9/4/2021

Drawing 09·03·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

This drawing took two studio days to complete. This dedication of time to a drawing is rare. It is a sophisticated drawing. Is it a great drawing? I am mulling on that! It takes me a few days, sometimes weeks, to determine the truth or deception of a work of art. My first impulse with this one is positive. I shall see...

Abstract Representation

9/1/2021

Drawing 08·31·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

In yesterday's post I invented a new phrase: "Referential Representation." Perhaps this is inaccurate; I am having second thoughts concerning its accuracy. A better phrase may be Abstract Representation. My work is abstract. My Art can be comprehended as non-representative. It can be seen as abstract because it is abstracted from my reality. My Art represents my intellectual and emotional reality.

The drawing I show today is based upon emotionally representative images; these images float in my psyche and memory. All my recent Art are transformed feelings and thoughts; internalized images transformed into representation, This is my mediative practice of Art-Making. My Art-Making is Abstract Representation, also Referential Representation. My Art does not represent walk-around, visual reality, but feelings and visual memories.

Art covered by the umbrella that is called "Abstract Art" is a sliding scale of images. Total Abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable. Partial Abstraction takes liberties, altering color and form in ways that are conspicuous. My Art is neither Total Abstraction or Partial Abstraction. My phrase, Abstract Representation, refers to images we all have seen and know. Does the phrase "Referential Representation" work as well? I have to mull on this.

Abstract Art (from Wikipedia)

Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.

Abstract art, non-figurative art, non-objective art, and non-representational art, are closely related terms. They are similar, but perhaps not of identical meaning.

Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. Even art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract, at least theoretically, since perfect representation is impossible. Artwork which takes liberties, altering for instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to anything recognizable. In geometric abstraction, for instance, one is unlikely to find references to naturalistic entities. Figurative art and total abstraction are almost mutually exclusive. But figurative and representational (or realistic) art often contain partial abstraction.

Both geometric abstraction and lyrical abstraction are often totally abstract. Among the very numerous art movements that embody partial abstraction would be for instance fauvism in which color is conspicuously and deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and cubism, which alters the forms of the real life entities depicted.