I don't care about straight lines on the page, but I do care about getting there directly, without straying too far from an authentic path. Here I am in another struggle to keep on a line to self-expression. This is about clarity and correct measurement, and not about skill and being true to form. Yesterday's drawing feels off. It is too ornate and confusing. It looks like a weird being from another planet is encountering a strange fruit from another planet (the objects may come from two different planets — who knows?).
Today I am back at it again! (Lately, I seem to be loving those exclamation points!!!) 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!!!
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!
Imagery is a problem, so why not begin with abstract images and create a reality unto itself? This seems reasonable. Yesterday I took the plunge. It makes sense to me. My figurative work was severely limited by the figure itself. The forcefulness of the formal qualities of art were begging to be more widely explored. Feeling emotionally confined is not good for the soul, nor for the art.
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. ...to get this painting right. The speed of that oil drys is the limiting factor. Details, details. The messiness of oil, wet on wet, is a problem for me. I do not seem to be able to get acceptable details in this painting, Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014, in one day of painting. It is best that I slow my desire to complete this painting to the speed of drying oil. This instigates anxiety, which I must control in order to ignore its dominance in my activity. Yesterday saw me working on the girl in the right panel. I will not work on her today. I'll work on the left and central panels, or maybe to her shoes and legs, but definitely not on her oil-wet face. Patience is difficult. I need to accept that each day of work gets this painting closer to its reason for existence.
Yesterday's drawing is yet another surprise. Where am I going? I was watching a film last night, an old romantic comedy. The best friend of the male protagonist said to his bewildered, romantically involved friend, something like this: "If you do not risk confusion, embarrassment, and misdirection, you cannot find truth." So, I guess, to best answer my question about where am I going, I must seek from where I came, which is equally confusing. 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.
Yesterday felt weird. I could not stop listening to the radio (NPR). I fumbled through the day, thinking all the while that I was ineffective, distracted. But NO! This drawing appears to me, today, to be the foundation of something true. It is not an end all, nor is it absolutely new vocabulary, but its process of creation, though my distraction, had authenticity, and thus merit. Yes, the guy in the back is in an impossible position, especially without a chair to hold him. It is this impossibility that makes sense to me. Allowing the abstraction of the forms on the table is also important. This is allowance of the juice of intuition to flow. I pretty much am accepting that if I am to be authentic I much allow myself to wander without anticipation. This is the lesson of yesterday's effort. It feels like I did not get a lot done, but that, in itself, is a lie and misconception. Burst is my idea of control of image, but not the importance of being a well trained athlete of artistic activity. There is truth in falsity. After all, there are many artists I respect who have stated the idea that is fully becoming obvious to me: to depict the truth one must fabricate a falsehood that jars one into reality. Non-fiction is full of trickery and artifice.
|
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
May 2024
|