 "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 8), oil on canvas, 58x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)} My goal, steal my soul, make me whole, and in the process I wish to touch your soul as well. With this intent, I show you, and me, the current state of the painting, No Living Thing Can Exist Without It. This painting ain't done yet, but its attempt to steal souls is becoming more obvious, more obvious with every step it takes.
0 Comments
 "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 7), oil on canvas, 58x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)}  Drawing 04·15·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches If there be alteration, let it be toward simple, potent, true. The drawing is state #2 of Drawing 04·15·2021, the painting is state #7 of "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It". Both have moved toward more direct, more comprehensibility, i.e., "Get to the point, damn it!" This is correct way for me. Confusion confuses. I have done confusion to myself too often. I have scurried around, looking for understanding, leaving a trail of questions without pure answers. Purity is required, whether the answer is final, and just a step along the way, "get to the point" is necessary. Actually, both should be true, finality and "just a step" in many more steps.
 Drawing 04·16·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·16·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I can feel it in my bones; the strong desire to make real my feelings. Yesterday I felt incapable of getting there. I work, I work, I move an inch or two, but not all the way. Yesterday I was disgusted with my failure. Other days I am elated because I moved an inch toward success. Real success is impossible. Conundrum grows as understanding grows. A wealth of comprehension merely brings knowledge of incomplete success. Full expression will never be reached because every new, every true idea brings knowledge of ideas unfulfilled.
Yes, yesterday's drawing are good ones. I do not care. I care to go back in, to seek another inch in my quest toward fulfillment of self-expression.  Drawing 04·15·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches It is a jungle out there. Clarity of purpose divides survivors from those taken by corruption and misunderstanding. I need more clarity. I walk into my moments seeking commitment to statements justified.
 Drawing 04·13·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 04·06·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Blink then look. First drawing is yesterday's. Second drawing was first performed on 4/6/2021, then revised yesterday; go back to my blog post of 4/7/2021 to see state 1 of the same drawing. Here are examples of solidification of truth and ideas. Ideas compete with truth to find finality as pencil marks.
 Drawing 04·11·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 6), oil on canvas, 56x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)} Nowhere but true. That is my direction. It is coming, it is happening, there is no end in sight, but things can change. I don't want to write, "Things will change," because that is my biggest fear. To be clear, I have no fear of change in my art, I have fear of change in my mindful living, moments by moment.
 "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 5), oil on canvas, 56x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)}  Drawing 04·09·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches One never knows if ten days from now there will be sun or clouds, even rain. But I do know I am here, I am vibrant, I am alive, I am making art. This is now. These are relevant works. They may look confusing, even to me. What do they mean? What do they say? Without verbal description I know they are the essence of my knowing. They say important things. Things. Stuff. Things and stuff; that is what I am.
 Drawing 04·08·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am working toward a disposition that is direct, realistic emotional intensity. Why muck around when roundabout is confusing? Go for it! Devolve from confusion, uncertainty, and mystification. This is the route to satisfactory communication, trueness in social intercourse. Yesterday's drawing was a realistic step toward my goal of unabashed, complete honesty.
 "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 4), oil on canvas, 56x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)}  Drawing 04·07·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am using a sketchbook again. You will not see it here because it is sketch notes to myself. It is teaching me basic needs. It is teaching me the simplicity of vision. I do need to change directions. I do need to go short and sweet. My work, too often, becomes complex. Too often I have solved problems by adding to complexity, rather than paring down to simple messaging. Yesterday's drawing exhibits my confusion. It has duplicity, and self awareness. Yesterday's drawing wants to go simple, but ends with a complexity of forms. Number and kinds of forms can distract. Going toward fewer forms is not necessarily going too little. There are all kind is of ways of making simplicity, sparsity of forms, into grand statements, ones filled with emotion and meaning. I am on the road to blunt and purposeful art. Keeping ideas alive, minute by insightful minute, will help. This is the reason for carrying a sketchbook, everywhere and always. I often awake with insights. My sketchbook was on my bedstead last night. This morning it was the first thing I picked up.
Working toward simplicity is necessary. That is happening in the painting, "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It".  Drawing 04·06·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches When I am in the studio nothing is dull, there is no ennui, just drama driven durance. I am captive to myself, captive to my ideas, flood they do, one on top of the next. Each work I do insights and invigorates me. Yesterday's drawing implores things to consider, more ideas, more joyous imprisonment in my studio.
|
To read my profile go to MEHRBACH.com.
At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
April 2021
|
RSS Feed