Drawings-02·18·2015 Nos. 1 & 2, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches I am surprised these drawings exhibit some interesting ideas. Two days ago, when they were made, I simply ran out of creative energy. I left the studio and went home. It fascinates me that I have so little control over the ebb and flow of my creative energy. It is like the weather: somewhat predictable, yet uncontrollable, and sometimes extremely surprising.
Untitled Drawings-01·27·2015, Nos. 1, 2, 3, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches Please look at everything! Yesterday was a wondrous and eventful day in the studio. The middle section of my studio-time was give to the portrait drawing shown below. It was a revelation in the making — it was controlled expression! I sustained sensitivity and feeling throughout its creation. In the past I had not been able to maintain expressive energy throughout the making of a drawing as complex as this one. If anything sums up yesterday's insight it is this: the use of contrast to animate forms. This is most apparent in the portrait drawing. It followed me into the painting. However, after finishing Drawing #4, my remaining time in the studio was limited. This insight did not have enough time to be fully expressed in the painting.
Insight: My recent work is not about a figurative style being replaced by an abstract style. It is about APPROACH. Yes, that is APPROACH in ALL CAPITALS and in BOLD! I am not about to give up all that I know. I am moving someplace, but it is not about loss or forgetting. It is about discovery and acceptance. The reference to the heart in yesterday's drawing is important. That heart cries out my acceptance of visually known forms. In addition to the heart, the space in yesterday's drawing is not abstract. The drips of Jackson Pollack's work are abstract. Jackson Pollack was vastly limited by his choice of means. He, in the end, performed more as an invalid than as an artist seeking a grand manner of communicating with his viewers. There is little sophistication in Pollack'e oeuvre. Where I go from this moment will be lost and found in the studio, and not in my verbalization of the process. Verbalization is a result of experience and not a precursor of discovery. From the Dictionary: The title is a little bit of abstract language. It fits my mood and the work I am creating. I am very excited. The work fits me. I wonder why I waited so long to come back here. Take a look at the last time I did abstract work at MEHRBACH.com Pictorial History 1987-1993.
Wowie zowie!!! This does make sense to me. Above, yesterday's drawing. Below, a new painting, begun yesterday. Fast and furious they shall come ( that's a prediction!). There is something VERY RIGHT about my present approach, albeit NOT new, but created because of years of practice and preparation. This is definitely NOT a "shot in the dark."
Happy New Year! and... welcome to a year that will be one of transition. Transition is the one thing that is assured. There is an old saying, "Change is the one constant." Well here it is. Yesterday's drawing is an announcement of change, but not the first. If you have been a consistent reader of my blog, you will have seen this coming in the last blog post of 2014. Strange it feels that despite my dedication to figurative art I am very excited about this newly embraced abstract direction. Philip Guston once said to me that I was a painter who enjoyed making objects. Back then I felt I'd rather make human figures. In actuality, I believe I prefer inventing expressive forms more than making human figures. Yesterday's drawing is strangely about both, mixing the human element with abstracted forms. It is obvious that this new path is a long one, upon which I have taken an initial step. More than anything, I am trying to follow my intuition in making images. I am dedicating myself toward personal, expressive satisfaction. The human figure alone was not enough, or it was not correct. I felt it held me back. I so much dedicated myself to human references that I impeded my ability to express with color, form, light, and perspective. My desire to make three-dimensional forms in three-dimensional space is immense. It should not be restricted. Given this idea I am going to follow this path which is intuitively motivated. Hang on!
The question, "Is it right?", will forever be unanswered. My job is to keep seeking, to make a consistent effort to be true to myself during the moments of creation, and to keep looking for truth and deceptions. I must nurture the truth. That's all there is to this art-making.
Yesterday's drawing was a stab at the satisfaction I am seeking. I made the forms, and the composition, with little fanfare, little criticism, and a lot of asking, "Does this feel good?" Yes, it does! I like the forms, I like the punctuations of dark values which animate the passage of light through the composition. It is this play of values, this light versus dark punctuation on forms, that creates the artifice of light, that I very much enjoy. The reference to natural forms may, or may not, be important. I am researching this, but at this time I have no definitive answer... "To reference natural forms or to create my own?" Perhaps the sweet spot for me is a combination of reference to visual nature while accepting open invention of form not seen before. This would allow me to step from the place I visually inhabit to an art that sings with my internalized visions and dreams. This sounds about right to me! I wish it was simpler, but nothing can get around it. I need to make a lot of drawings in order to investigate the various possibilities that may, or may not, express my internalized view of existence. I am not even sure if these expressive images should be abstract or concrete, be figurative, or of referential forms. Yesterday saw me playing around, researching a couple of different approaches to solving this problem. What to draw? What to paint? These questions seem ridiculous. Obviously, I am enamored by the visual. So here's problem: How do I make art that expresses my infatuation with that which I see outside and inside of me? Yesterday there was a little success in this ongoing investigation. Yesterday's accomplishment is seen in the second drawing (#2, above). It is more about approach then image. I very much enjoyed inventing the forms, from the hands, to the shoes, to the weird bird that pokes in from the right. Spatial play also feels good to me. In my last blog post I wrote of seeking sweet satisfaction. I felt that kind of satisfaction most during my creation of the shoe on his right foot. Idiosyncratic? Yes! I enjoy the way his skinny leg thrusts into the bulky shoe. Mostly I enjoyed the many stabs at getting it right: drawing, erasing, drawing, erasing, drawing, et cetera, et cetera. It was an adventure, like seeking the proper path to get though a maze. I will follow this satisfactory approach as I continue my research today. AnnouncementMy recent work is telling: I have not been true to myself. I am not interested in the figure as a primary image. I believe it is a conduit to expression, but not the end-all of expression. The abstract power of composition, form, and color, are far more important. As example, my devotion to drawing human couples has been a distraction. Why? It has allowed me to acquire knowledge with little expressive satisfaction. In drawing such a mundane subject I have enhanced my technical abilities. I have enhanced my form making, graphic punctuation, and spatial expression. I accept these abstract qualities as my drops of candy. I enjoy them in the way we all enjoy eating incredibly, perfectly balanced, candies (excellent dark chocolates are my favorites). These satisfyingly sweet qualities are clues to the path I should follow. My repetitive return to the figure, in normal reductive space, has been my distraction. I have begun an effort to break myself of this habit so I may seek my candy. I want to follow the path of most pleasure. Example, I find the man's right leg in yesterday's second drawing extremely pleasureable (his left leg is on the viewer's right). The play of form is animated by the staccato of the toes ending an appendage which flows forward in space, as if hovering above ground. The forward thrust of space is partially created by simple punctuation of dark that mimics a shadow on a floor. Oh! This is so very satisfying to me!
What I need to do now is follow these clues. Follow them like stones laid down in a path. If I do this, I will follow new forms, new spaces, new compositions, and new colors, on my way to multiple satisfactions. I want to walk out of the studio satiated, not feeling as I have recently felt. I have been feeling too much like an explorer with no satisfactory discoveries. Not good. I am always expecting an instant of surprise, the shock of the new. But it does not happen that way. Slowly but surely, moment to moment, day to day, I re-evaluate. I ask myself questions, I second guess my impulses, and I make art. And so it goes. I believe the reason I have put off a return to the finish of the painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 can be found in this activity of re-evaluation, which is pre-occupying me. Yesterday's drawing is example. It took nearly all my studio time. The remainder was used to look at what I have done, to look at what others have done, and to question all of it.
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April 2024
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