Category: Emotive

Strong by Default

1/16/2022

Drawing 01·15·2022, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Complex versus simple; expression is in the eye of the beholder. I must remember this: The artist is not required to spell out every nuance of every feeling. The artist is required to be simple, pure, accepting of the viewer's profound understanding of life, living, and feeling. In other words, the artist is not required to spell out every nuance of every feeling. No more descriptive quality is necessary If the artist feels, then produces an image that is that feeling. The viewer, through his or her feeling, will complete that which must be felt.

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Purity v. Emotive Complexity

12/17/2021

Drawing 12·16·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Drawing 12·16·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

I want my Art to simultaneously contain purity and emotive complexity. Are they mutually exclusive? I believe Mark Rothko, and Ellsworth Kelly, have proved otherwise. And... they are not the only ones.

Negative space is paramount as emotive structure. Positive forms share responsibility; forms must be profoundly, attentively complex, while positioned sparsely within negative space.

Yesterday's drawings continue my research into this dilemma, purity versus emotive complexity.

Desperately Seeking Universality

12/14/2021

Drawing 12·11·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Drawing 12·11·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

These drawings are research efforts. They desperately seek universal emotive impact. I seek emotional visual statements, statements not confused by dominant forms. Substantive negative space is required to give positive forms potency by juxtaposition.

The Fat Lady will Never Sing

12/11/2021

Drawing 12·10·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

One goal of my journey is to fully comprehend negative space. I want to utilize negative space, make potently emotive. I want this for my drawings, I want this for my paintings. This journey, as long as I breathe, will never end. This particular Fat Lady will never sing for me. Yesterday's drawing is a good step toward understanding the emotive potential of negative space. Dwell on this drawing for a few moments. Do you feel the space between forms? Does it make you emotional? It does me!

A Little Everyday & Wanting to Cry

12/4/2021

Drawing 12·03·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

"Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up" (2021 No.10, state 8), oil on canvas, 56x62¼ inches, {"And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in 'The House at Pooh Corner' at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up." - Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), in "The New Yorker", 20 October 1928, reviewed by Dorothy Parker as "Constant Reader"}

I want to cry over the beauty of my paintings and drawings. I am not there yet. It is my goal. I want myself, and my viewers, to feel so very deeply the sincerity, and the nuanced beauty, of each of my art works, so much so that they are filled with emotion, emotion that spills so hard that they break down and cry. I am taking baby steps in that direction. I am not there yet.

Toward Strange or Real?

11/10/2021

"Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up" (2021 No.10, state 2), oil on canvas, 46⅝x60⅝ inches, {"And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in 'The House at Pooh Corner' at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up." -Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), in "The New Yorker", 20 October 1928, reviewed by Dorothy Parker as "Constant Reader"}

Truth is not obvious. I am constantly in search. I am stripping away falsehoods, recognizing dead ends, and acknowledging personal deceptions. I am redirecting myself. I am moving away from a pursuit of mistaken, misguided lines of thought and action. I am moving toward real, actual, authentic, emotive compositions, forms, and images. The title of my newest painting (2021 No.10) may be humorous, but its intent is serious. I am in the process of removing falderal from my art.

Looking for Wonder

11/9/2021

Drawing 11·05·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Drawing 11·07·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Yesterday I completed both these drawings. They are strongly emotive; that's what I feel. You, my viewers, may feel differently. I know nothing except myself, alone. These cause wonder. These are true to me. I congratulate myself!

Abstract Abstractor

9/8/2021

Drawing 09·07·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

I am surprising myself. It is fun to abstract visual truth found in my walk-around reality. I do not know if viewers comprehend the twists and turns advanced upon my visual references, the ones that appear in my artwork. Do I care? This is my imagery. I am sending visual messages out into the world. Each viewer will interpret these images differently. Each will comprehend my images based on their own walk-around reality.

Yesterday I enjoyed making the drawing I show today. In its making I performed like a practiced acrobat: muscle memory, intellectual memory, and emotional memory performed as one. During its making I knew right from wrong, a righteous mark from a fallacious one.

A New & Steady Man

9/6/2021

"Find a Man" (2021 No.8, state 2), oil on canvas, 55¼x59½ inches, {"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), "Pensées", 29 (1670)}

My approach in making this painting feels new. I act with a steady hand, a true hand; slowly, introspectively, with caution, deliberation, then with confidence. I know what I am doing. I know what I am making. This is truth-telling in action. The result is true. This is how Art should be made: deep, unexplainable, intuitive knowledge in genesis as real. It is my vision made into visual reality.

The title of this painting, "Find a Man", is apt. "When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to find an author, and we find a man." -Blaise Pascal