 "Clever Liars" (2020 No.1, state 01), oil on canvas, 56¼x45¼ inches {"Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't!" -anonymous}  Drawing 02·22·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I have often referred to the feigning of the third dimension on a two-dimensional surface as artifice. Here is it again, in a new painting, and in a new drawing; both are products of yesterday's studio session. The painting is aptly entitled "Clever Liars"; its third-dimension is a lie. My quotation is an old one, one with no known author. The idea is "details" diminish the cleverness of a lie. Too many details in a lie diminish its acceptance in marriages, business, and politics, not so in art. The more detail in a drawing, or a painting, the more the viewer accepts the artifice. If you don't believe me, or if you don't see this in the work I post today, view the 2014 watercolor painting by Anselm Kiefer, below; you can feel your eye fall into Kiefer's painting, scoping back until the eye hits the artifice that appears to be a sunset. This use of the third dimension is very important to me. I find an image which engages the viewer because it insists upon being seen with a third-dimension, a grandly accepted lie; the lie of depth on a flat plane, forces the viewer to think actuality, i.e., the viewer has an additional incentive to believe the image before them mimics reality. They fall into the artwork as people fall into a con job. I have been told the greatest cons are those the "mark" believe they have determined to benefit themselves; the mark determines they will benefit by causing a loss to the con-artist; the "stooge" thinks the "grifter" does not understand how he, the "confidence man," will lose when the "sucker" goes ahead and takes the bait. FYI: A confidence trick is also known as a con game, a con, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko (or bunco), a swindle, a flimflam, a gaffle, or a bamboozle. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, stooges, mugus, rubes, or gulls (from the word gullible). When accomplices are employed, they are known as shills.  Anselm Kiefer, "The Evening of All Days, the Day of All Evenings", watercolor on paper, 2014
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 "Inertia to Movement" (2019 No.6, state 3), oil on canvas, 64.5x64.75 inches {"Emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light, or from inertia to movement, without emotion." -Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious", 1955, translation R.F.C Hull} The two Carls believe the same thing; i.e., Jung and Mehrbach. There is no change from darkness to light, or from inertia to movement, without emotion. It is me that I seek. I seek me by practicing the best means I have available, my emotional responsiveness. I like the changes that occurred yesterday in the painting Inertia to Movement. Here is witness to my accepting emotional response as responsibility. In this painting the layers of mess are contrasted with clearness and light, they exist in contraposition, one to the other. Through holding two opposing conditions simultaneously this painting exhibits one as true if, and only if, its contrapositive is true. Contraposition  Drawing 01·16·2020, graphite on paper, 16x20 inches It is a mystery to me the vast degree of difference in sight and understanding, one person to the next. George Bernard Shaw told a story in his autobiography, writing that his eye doctor told him that he sees with normal vision; Shaw asked the doctor, "So I see like everyone else?" The doctor replied, "No, less than 10% of people have normal vision." I feel the same about my work. I believe I see with normal vision. My works visually communicates deep understanding, both intellectual and emotional. Yet I find people who celebrate the clarity of my vision far fewer than those who react to it in any substantial manner; they simply walk by. This is my quandary. I will continue my journey. I continue to hope my work will become more universal in its communication, its social intercourse, thus allowing me to share communion with others.
 Drawing 12·29·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am acutely aware of my failure to use negative space most effectively. I become acutely aware of my failure when I view master drawings, such as those of Philip Guston's (now on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City). Philip Guston happened to be my most important mentor. I studied with Guston for two years at Boston University (MFA 1979). Awareness of negative space is awareness of one's own personal, emotional space. Visual emotional communication is marks on blank paper or blank canvas. The emotional communication occurs by variation of marks and forms, and by the space left between those marks and forms. My drawing from yesterday does not do this poorly, but it is not as potently communicative as I want it to be. I failed to fully succeed because I did not effectively describe the stress between forms and marks; consequently this drawing does not feel as much as I feel.  Drawings by Philip Guston at the Guggenheim Museum (NYC), 12/28/2019  Drawing 12·20·2019, graphite on paper, 16x20 inches Am deluding myself? Or...is my work is getting stronger with every effort? I believe this: The unknown essence that is my understanding of art-making, the art I am compelled to make, is increasing rapidly; my unknown is becoming known! Yesterday's drawing is formally robust, emotionally translucent, intellectually satisfying. This drawing steps in the direction that is solely mine. Seeing it trumpets fulfillment, but not finality of fulfillment.
 "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5, state 10), oil on canvas, 48.5x32.5 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer on his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"}  Drawing 11·24·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches There is something magical and emotional about the negative. Forms dominate both the drawing and the painting in today's post, but it is the negative, the areas without form, that sing in emotional stress. The forms punch out of the negative, speak loudly in positive voices. Consequently the forms punch enthusiastically, in and out they go, undeniable they are. This would, and could, not happen without astute realization of negative spaces. I believe yesterday's drawing is one of my most fully realized. It was born in mindfulness. Its exudes delicate interaction between individual forms, forms against one another, forms against ground. Elegant they are, both painting and drawing, both are loudly original, loudly me!
 Drawing 10·01·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 09·25·2019 No.2 state 2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The largest hindrance to my success is my noxious ability to accept less than complete. You can see this happen in the second drawing I show today, but you have to go back to its original version to understand — see state 1 in this blog's post from 9/26/2019.
Yesterday's art-making felt wondrous, amazingly mindful. The drawing I made yesterday, from nothing but a white piece of paper, is one of my best. I lament my inability to reproduce it accurately, but that is nothing new. This drawing is new in its depth of confessional accuracy.  "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5), oil on canvas, 47x30.5 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer of his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"} Astute readers of my blog will notice the title of my newly begun painting has changed, from yesterday's intended title to today's actual title. I introduce to you, Gunfire Across My Consciousness. Technically it is oil on canvas. However, the drawing on the canvas is oil based markers, colors copper and gold. Never before have I used oil-based markers to begin a painting. Never before have l used the colors copper or gold. The thought is this: My inculcated ideas must be challenged. Hence comes oil markers, copper and gold, and the methodology used to begin this painting. The methodology is not simple alteration of technique, it is change in attitude. I challenge myself. My mind acts quickly, feels quickly. I made an effort to hang in there during its making, I allowed the marks to happen like gunshots hitting the canvas, straight out of the avalanche that is my mind's activity. (See below the full quote from Christopher Nolan's interview, published in the November 8, 1987 issue of the Observer.) "My real motive is to describe how my brain-damaged life is as normal for me as my friends able-bodied life is to them. My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down into my lap. Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse. Try then to imagine how frustrating it is to give expression to that avalanche in efforts of one great nod after the other."  Drawing 08·27·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Over and over I have been asked to identify the artist who has influenced me most. I react different to two kind of Artist Influencers. There are artists whose splendid paintings I admire; Picasso comes to mind. There are artists who make splendid paintings, but I also admire their process, their methodology. This second category is more important to me, I have often referred to Matisse as a major influencer; of course the many discussions I had with my primary teacher and mentor, Philip Guston, will always influence my quest for truly satisfying process-methodology. Until yesterday! I have often looked at, often admired, the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). Yesterday a friend of mine sent me a little book entitled, Basquiat-isms. This book is filled with splendid snippets of ideas, direct quotes from Basquiat. Here are three from that book; these make total sense to me: "I am trying to communicate an idea; I was trying to paint a very urban landscape. I was trying to make paintings different from the paintings that I saw a lot of at the time, which were mostly minimal, and they were highbrow and alienating, and I wanted to make very direct paintings that most people would feel the emotion behind when they saw them." "I feel if I work randomly, I come up with a more interesting narrative." Asked, "Do you think you are lucky?" Basquiat responded, "Talented, too." I began yesterday's drawing with as much randomness as I could muster. My intense self-educated skill took over; I worked as thoughtlessly as I could muster. Look what happened!  Jean-Michel Basquiat, "Pork Sans", oil & pencil on wood door, 211x85.5cm, 1981  Drawing 08·04·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Even to me, yesterday's drawing sings a radical message. It conserves Western's Art's intrigue with perspective, yet creates a room-like environment inhabited by a form of many forms. It has little comfortable references to reality. This is pure three-dimensional abstraction, simultaneously conservative and radical. Viewing discomfort abounds! Is it good art? It is what it is: a test, a proving ground, research, and profoundly articulate. This drawing is filled with finesse of touch and of pencil marks. It exudes elegance in form-creation and in composition. Yet, it is disturbingly different; it is different than anything I have imagined prior to its existence. My role is not to judge, but to make, then move on to create some more.
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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
February 2020
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