 Drawing 06·02·020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My art is, indeed, unique. It must be questioned. Is this the best I can do? Does this represent me? Am I engaging the viewer in a conversation about the here and the now and who we are? Does this approach make sense? I am asking, "Am I wasting my time?" Is my work valuable to more than just me? Doing it feels like mediation; it profits me. I want more. I want my art to be relevant to everyone. Touching everyone, with emotion and intellect, is impossible. Many won't pay attention; many are just not interested. A lot of people are preoccupied with other things.
I am strongly committed to the journey I am on. Again, it feels like meditation. As I make art, my thoughts come in/go out, new ones arrive, old ones depart; time is irrelevant; being is relevant. Yesterday's drawing achieves much of my recent ambitions. It is classically centered. It hits the viewer head-on. It plays well spatially. It plays with contrast of forms and contrast of value; this image is static, yet demandingly varied; thus it causes the viewer to come straight in, wander, linger, and think. Still, I question, "Is anyone paying attention?"
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 "Amidst a Falling World" (2020 No.3, state 07), oil on canvas, 66¼x55½ inches {"Should the whole frame of nature around him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace (65-8BC), "Odes", book 3, no.4, I.52)}  Drawing 05·31·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It can get very confusing. Knowledge is a strong, but power can distort possibilities. If power be fully followed, the consequences may not fall comfortably; the result may be incorrectly conceived. Failure occurs because power was allowed to precede knowledge; power has the ability to push aside a level-headed approach, thus diminishing the ability to secure a well measured result. Great art is balanced by perspicuity. With this I look at yesterday's work. I am insecure with it. The painting feels unfinished, not forceful enough; the drawing is a risk in value contrast and form contrast. Do they work well? Are they successful in engaging thought and feeling? I must think about this; both these works make me nervous. Or, is my nervousness merely a sign of the times I am living within?
Note on reproduction: Today's reproduction fails to accurately represent yesterday's actual drawing. The more a work of art relies upon subtlety to convey its ideas and emotions, the more the reproduction of it fails to impress.  Drawing 05·30·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Practice can both consolidate and invent. I am trying to do both. This drawing achieves both. One thing I especially enjoy about this drawing is its formidable, large forms.
My process accepts the appearance of self-instigated demands. When demands occur, a solution must be dealt. You can see this in yesterday's drawing; this is the first use of this kind of top-half trapezoid in my work. It drives the view back in space while also forcing the viewer to accept the drawings central theme. It calls out my acceptance of head-on, centered, classical compositions.  "Clever Liars" (2020 No.1, state 08), oil on canvas, 56½x47½ inches {"Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't!" - anonymous}  Drawing 05·28·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Precious be the day when headway is accomplished. Onward I go with every mark I make; outward I am becoming. These works are very good; "knock on wood" that this may continue for a good while longer; years and years before I sleep!
 Drawing 05·24·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The image I show today is simple and complex; it gives comfort in its clarity, it is exhilarating to observe its complications. But is it satisfying to me? It does not feel completely correct. There is something missing, something not-quite "me." It is organized well. It is simple, it is refined in organization, it calls for contemplative investigation; all that is all well and good. What, then, is missing? Recently I have been looking at a lot of works by Francis Bacon, and I have also been studying many works of Ellsworth Kelly. Both stir my loins; I find both successful, effective, potent, and compelling. How, then, do I combine these two motives in order to make my art? This question highlights my current struggle to be free, to be me.
 Drawing 05·23·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Yesterday I received a used copy of the 1996 Ellsworth Kelly Retrospective Exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Slid between the front cover and the title page was a Guggenheim Museum flyer for the opening month of the exhibit. In the flyer was a reference to Pablo Picasso, showing one of his drawings that influenced Ellsworth Kelly. That drawing inspired the drawing I show you today (made yesterday).
 Drawing 05·22·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches You can't do this without it. Full revelation, nudity if you wish, requires full frontal revelation to be fully enticing. Enticement is my goal. Without enticement I lose the viewer before engagement. If you place a fully nude, fully frontal person, in front of you, do you not become engaged? Behold! It is the same for art!
 Drawing 05·21·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The struggle to be free is all about the rectangle. I have to fill that rectangle with notice. I have to fill it with emotion and intellect. I have to fill it with truth and authenticity. I have to make sense within it, thus allowing the viewer to make sense with it or without it. The viewer is outside of it, looking in. My images must engage immediately with immediacy. My images are becoming this, a reality unto themselves derived from all I am and can be. I have found freedom by acceptance of the rectangle's requirement of full frontal truth. I am now able to perform on the highest level of intellect and emotion. This is what I got, so here I am showing it off!
 Drawing 05·20·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Amidst a Falling World" (2020 No.3, state 06), oil on canvas, 66¼x55½ inches {"Should the whole frame of nature around him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace (65-8BC), "Odes", book 3, no.4, I.52)} The cliché about the elephant in the room is upon me. Direct, emotive, head-on, purposeful slam and damn, is necessary; it is no longer possible for me to ignore. I have tried to avoid this elephant, this inevitable realization; my art has suffered because of my ignorance.
Yesterday's work recognizes reality; I accept necessity. Yesterday's drawing, and the changes made to the painting, "Amidst a Falling World," are actualizations of necessity. Viewer engagement requires the image be immediately recognizable; this means it must be without pretension. It must sit squarely, recognizably, in front of the viewer.  Drawing 05·19·2020 No.1  Drawing 05·19·2020 No.2 Nothing else need be true than this: each work I make should be made in an immediacy of purpose. Yesterday I got closer to this; you can see it, I can see it, in these drawings.
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At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
June 2020
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