You would think I would know this by now! Of course I do, and I did! However, I sometimes allow my panoply of knowledge to be dominated by a segment or two. In recent paintings I allowed form, and/or color, to overwhelm atmosphere. Not yesterday. I dealt with it! Henri Matisse dealt with it too. In 1914 Matisse pushed a painting so hard toward atmospheric dominance that it became nearly abstract. Below I show you Matisse's 1914 painting of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Below it I show a painting of the same subject done in 1902. Yes, Matisse developed between 1902 and 1914. His knowledge became more internalized. More more important to me, Matisse experimented and made paintings that explored ideas without declaring them the end all or be all. That is exactly my nature right here right now. Yesterday's drawings explore possible means of putting a hard form in a complete composition: atmosphere versus form versus composition. These reproductions were taken by a Nikon COOLPIX L810 16.1MP Digital Camera, just a simple "point & shoot" camera, not a DSLR. I am surprised. The quality of these reproductions is very good. The death of my old Nikon D80 DSLR (vintage 2006) is a good thing. I will be purchasing a new Nikon DSLR, but the quality of the reproductions you see here is adequate. Adequate enough for me to post a second reproduction of the current state of the painting "2016 No.6". Usually I use a polarization filter to reduce glare from lighting, but this camera does not allow a filter. Still, very good with minimal glare. This proves you learn from a mishap. This proves technology moves rapidly forward, and I need to stay up with it. Today you can see me ascending a learning curve in more ways than simple reproduction. Although I do think the current state of "2016 No.6" is better than the last, viewing it makes me miss my fondness for deep space. Thus the drawings I made two days ago, posted here today. I believe I have a major problem to work through (which is a constant). Today's major problem is me, integrating light, color, energy of surface and touch, with my fondness for deep space: Not easy for me. At one point in Willem de Kooning's career, and also, earlier in my career, our paintings went Black & White, sans color. This may have to happen again. At the end of today's post are reproductions of Black & White oil paintings, de Kooning's from 1948 and mine from 1984. Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) was not well known in 1948 (his colorful "Woman" paintings began later that year. Willem de Kooning's "Woman" paintings marked the beginning of his artistic maturity). Most proud I am of the tactility exhibited in the painting "2016 No.4". My level of tactile conscious is rapidly expanding. This measure, which is so much a part of oil painting, has always been important to me, but has not always been easily available. Struggling for emotive and authentic forms has preoccupied me far too long. I welcome the enhanced sensuality of touch that is now part of every mark I make. A major goal is to allow this complementary tactility to be equal in importance to form, composition, light, and color.
Yesterday was a good day for me. All three of the images I worked upon have emotional stature. That is a great measure of success! I am encountering an expected major problem for an artist with my propensities. How do I integrate the background with the robust forms I create in the foreground? This is a problem because of my natural desire to create sculptural forms. Why don't I just make sculpture? I tried that. I did not like it. It takes too much time to manipulate large forms, as well as enormous studio space and enormous cost. There is also color. I love color. I also love to control and manipulate light. Playing with light crossing forms is so much more direct in drawing and painting than in sculpture. So, here I am. I must deal with the inherent two-dimensionality of canvas or paper as I produce artificially drawn three-dimensional forms. To make the actual 2D work well with the artifice of 3D is not an easy task. It took Cezanne a lifetime. I am committed to this. It looks like abstract forms may allow me to research more directly with this 2D/3D problem than having to worry about the efficacy and meaning of actual forms, human or otherwise. At least, that is how I feel today.
In yesterday's post I showed a reproduction of a painting by Carroll Dunham. That painting of Dunham's is similar to many of his recent paintings. Dunham's color scheme is repetitive. Dunham's imagery is repetitive, including the use of the backside of a woman with large buttocks (take a look at Dunham's website for more of the same: Carroll Dunham's website). Yesterday a woman with large buttocks showed up in my drawing. This drawing is influenced by Carroll Dunham, but it is obviously quite different than Dunham's work. Most interesting to me is my vastly dissimilar approach to drawing. In everything I do, it is me I am interested. It appears, however, that I am casually interest in Dunham. Comparing Dunham's approach to mine is instructive. I am all about being playful with forms, creating interesting compositions based upon forms in space, and scratching the surfaces of those forms with pencil or paint. Contrasting Dunham's works to mine makes my own approach so apparent to me. In contrast to Dunham, my work is non-repetitive in its use of imagery, form, space, color, and composition. Carroll Dunham does appear to make many more paintings than I. So sticking to one idea that strikes one's fancy may help produce a large volume of work, but is it good work? I will not answer that, but I will say that Dunham appears to have "made it", by which I mean his paintings are bought and possessed by collectors, one after another. That has not happened to me. My work is not about producing a large volume of work. Is this a problem? This question I will not attempt to answer.
It is beginning to feel more like contemplation and less like intellectualization. Yesterday's drawing shows me going back and forth between my contemplative-acting intuition and my question-asking intellect. The first drawing is me producing a casually flowing drawing, which ends with an intellectualized, verbal question. This conflict may exhibit problems that occur when the id and the ego are in combat. The second drawing is straightforwardly about combat. The transition from drawing #1 to drawing #2 may exhibit this mental confusion, but it may also be about the world's combative confusion. The strongly male component that instigates present world combat is apparent. Thus the extreme maleness of the figure in drawing #2. Artistically, the figure plays against an abstract background. This is more important to me than any contemporary, or classically mythological, message I am trying to convey. BTW: Today's reproduction of the painting, Lava, is the closest I have gotten to the original. In yesterday's blog post, Lava's reproduction is too color intensive, i.e. it is more color saturated than the original. Drawings from 5/24/2015, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches
I am actually very surprised, and excited, by the vast difference in paint and color application occurring in the new painting Asparagus. Difference? It is different from previous paintings, especially different from the slow and methodical approach I was taking in last year's (2014's) diptych and triptych. Yesterday's drawing also has a unique feel. Uniqueness is good! I forgot to sign yesterday's drawing. Perhaps I knew that any further mark would disturb this drawing's vertical balance. The compositional play within this drawing goes with, and against, symmetry.
Untitled Drawings-01·30·2015 Nos. 1, 2, 3, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches Yesterday was a day of intense work in the studio. Looking back, it is difficult to believe I got all of this work done in one session. As usual, the drawings came first, then the painting.
The painting is relatively small (for me), but its symmetry, attention to surface, and minor versus major form, fascinates me. It is a head-on painting, with simplicity of color, and simplicity of composition. This, like the size of painting, is rather unusual for me. No more comments from me today, except me noting that the formal qualities explored in yesterday's studio session are remarkable. I have made things more difficult for myself. I feel nervous and in a hurry, yet unable to rush. The nuances are insistent. My painting is calling for extreme attention to details. For instance, the blocks near the center of painting lack adequate contrast (light versus dark). Today's reproduction of painting Untitled Painting-01·06·2015, and all my reproductions, are imperfect. The more I attend to nuance the further the reproductions remove themselves from reality. Here is another "for instance": the background's rhythmic undulation of flatly drawn, mountain like peaks, moves from Pure Cadmium Orange on the left to Pure Cadmium Red Medium on the right, yet you can not see this in today's reproduction. I tried to get it right, but the complexity of the all the nuances present in this painting forced me to compromise to get this reproduction as close to authenticity as it now appears. There is no full success in reproducing art works on the web or on paper! I am struggling to be open and free, but time is limited and insights are unlimited. What to do? I choose to struggle on. Untitled Drawings-01·25·2015, Nos. 1, 2, 3, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches
This process is not easy, not at all, and... I wish it were easy! Wishing gets nothing, doing does. The more I do this the greater the force of my insight: I must move away from figuration. Figuration, for me, had become a dead end. I want to express using painterly purity: color, form, composition, surface energy, and light. If I remained fettered to the figure I would have concerned myself with thoughts of physiognomy and anatomy. This diversion had removed me from the direct and the simple, and the possibility of true expression. Authentication of my primary impetus, to find meaning through making art, had become impossible. It is no wonder that it took me so much time, and energy, to complete the last two paintings you can see on my website, MEHRBACH.com, i.e. the triptych and diptych (Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 and Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014). My time and energy were me seeking true expression. I was a true detective, but I missed vital clues. The struggle to get it right was the major clue, and I missed it! This dumbfounded miss, this failure, had told its own story. I ignored the clue, and went on and on and on. Is this a problem now? Was this a failure from which I learned nothing? No, no, no! I am a better man for it! Today I begin a new painting. Watch me crow!!!
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April 2024
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