 "Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 6), oil on canvas, 65x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)} The painting "Doublethink" is living up to its name. Its process is me thinking twice. It is straightforward problem solving (though an outsider may believe it being solved in a roundabout way). I am pushing up against current knowledge; In order to solve this I must make new knowledge. This is exhilaration! It's a wonderful life!
0 Comments
 Drawing 07·20·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Mysterious are the travels that reveal. Always new, always old; both! I drag ideas from the past, I disclose ideas in the present. Yesterday's drawing summarizes, questions, solidifies, and declares. It is a restrained revelation. I do not know its entire meaning. This is me in the act of self-discovery. I am making my oeuvre. This drawing feels important, like reading a poem that makes total sense because it elegantly discloses archetypal ideas. This is visually prototypical, peculiar to me.
 Drawing 07·18·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 01), oil on canvas, 36x61.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"} Yesterday felt almost normal. I was in the studio; I made art! I had more ideas than I could make real. Thus came a new painting, "Sentence". "Sentence" is named after the splendid poem by Tadeusz Dąbrowski, published in this week's The New Yorker magazine (July 22, 2019 Issue). Yesterday's drawing was new and different and excellent too! Sentence  "Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 5), oil on canvas, 58x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)}  Drawing 07·14·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches My work does not come easy; never feels immediately right and good. I'm always troubled; always wondering about the means to better success. Best is my being there, doing this, living the questioned life.
 Drawing 07·09·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I failed yesterday if simplicity be my goal. It is not! I want the intellectual and emotional satisfaction of complex images and the direct and immediate engagement of simplicity. Ellsworth Kelly achieved great visual impact using simple images. Kelly's work satisfies emotionally and intellectually. His is a great achievement. As much as I envy Kelly's direct route to completely fulfilling art, I am not Ellsworth Kelly; I am myself. My path continues to be discovered, step by currently unknown next step. Yesterday's drawing was such a step. It taught me; I reflect upon it. I want the negative space in my art to be as effective as Ellsworth Kelly was able to achieve in his art.  Ellsworth Kelly, "Untitled", oil on canvas, 1958  Drawing 07·07·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Purification is occurring, but is it right and good? There must be a middle ground that makes sense. I do like intellectual answers brought upon the viewer by asking a complexity of questions. I enjoy darting around an image, looking for sense in nonsense. Open negative space is exhilarating when handled well, when breathtakingly emotional in design. Complexity within the darkness that is shadow and form can also be emotionally breathtaking. Yesterday's drawing is a huge question. I do not pretend it is anywhere near a definitive, archetypal answer.
 Drawing 07·06·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Being an artist, a composer of visual compositions, brings social engagement and loneness of composing. Important is the balance of my social interaction and my private activity as visual creator. Showing my work is exhilarating, very social. Exhibiting often overwhelms me, definitely distracts me from creating. There is a great difference between composer and performer. I am more the composer; I enjoy the quietude of problem solving in the studio more than the sociableness of exhibitions. Exhibitions allow friends to see me and my work together; exhibitions bring critiques from strangers along with viewers who look silently. Through my observing my exhibitions instruct me on the success and failure of every work I exhibit; Exhibitions are about success and failure of viewer engagement.
Yesterday I had a chance to compose, to create, to draw. This happened after hours of re-framing drawings that came back from my Bromfield Gallery exhibition. I noticed the linen tape I used to secure them to the mounting board had annoyingly wrinkled the paper. The linen tape I used required water to invigorate the glue. I removed the water based tape, ironed the drawings flat, then applied linen tape made with dry adhesive. The annoying wrinkles are gone. Yesterday I did this to four drawings. Today I will do it to four more. Why? Because tomorrow these drawings are going up in exhibition at Converse Free Library (Lyme, NH). I continue to juggle my time between composing and exhibition. |
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
July 2019
|
RSS Feed