I once read Pablo Picasso hired studio helpers to duplicate his paintings in process. He did this because he wanted to go two ways with the same painting. This happens to me, in drawings and in paintings. I do not have studio helpers. Yesterday I moved a drawing to a place I thought was as good as it gets, then I had second thoughts. I photographed state 1; went back into the same drawing. This happens often to me; usually I do not take the time to photograph earlier states. I am desperate to get to the best conclusions possible. In fact, the more I know the more desperate I am. My artistic intensity is on the rise. I am feel upset, like an angry person in quest of a solution to my problems. In this case ,it is the failure of my Art to be as good as I know it can be.
I do like state 2 of this drawing much better than state 1. I am toying with allowing negative space to have its day. However, I do hate vacuums, pure white. I need to see everything that is the surface's ground. Van Gogh and I are similar in this regard. True too with Andrew Wyeth. "Gonna Speak to the Crowd" (2021 No.5, state 16), oil on canvas, 64x57⅜ inches, {"I'm gonna spare the defeated — I'm gonna speak to the crowd. I'm gonna spare the defeated, boys, I'm going to speak to the crowd. I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered. I'm gonna tame the proud." - Bob Dylan, "Lonesome Day Blues" (2001)} There are may ways to impact viewers. For a painter, means are few. There is form, composition, and color. Use of these elements is a wide open sea. Looking out upon a wide sea tells little about direction. In other words, a correct direction is not easy to know. Yesterday I did make headway. Judge for yourself. I am very interest in the impactful use of negative space. One of greatest masters of negative space is Andrew Wyeth (see below). I very much like this drawing. I very much liked the last drawing I made on 10/15/2021. They are very different. This one contains two strong, complex forms; these forms are against a blank background, except for a simple line to delineate a horizon. The one from 10/15 I called an "all-over" drawing. This one spares marks from the white background. These drawings illustrate a method. I see myself go back and forth, not by design, but by challenge and need. Both drawings are conscious of the entire rectangle they sit within; but, they handle the flat piece of paper in very different ways.
It is not the forms we see that inform; it is the absence between the form, the negative space between the residence of forms, that makes information. I know this. I am working to feel this. I am working to make my knowing into real visual information. This is one more tick to be ticked on my list of quests. There is (i) centering. Now there is (ii) negative space as potent information. If you doubt my reasoning, take a good look at works by Egon Schiele. The force of my will made this one. It is apropos of my need to grab your attention, grab my attention. I center you, I center me, by using strong vertical forms. Somehow, when I was finished with this drawing, I was reminded of Picasso's "Crucifixion" from 1930. I believe it to be one of Picasso's most remarkable works, different as it is in color, space, and forms from anything else Picasso. Yes, in this crucifixion there is relationships to everything Picasso had done, and would do, but Picasso's approach here is quite different. The viewer is centered by the light-valued blue of the Christ figure and his distraught mother. After this centering, the viewer can wander, be continuously surprised by the complete animation, the literal references, within the composition, one after the next. My drawing is simpler, yet equally haunting. This bring me to the question of background. There is blank paper in my drawing. Does that work? I usually like to touch every surface. I usually feel the need to identify every part of my paper's surface as part of my space, my time, and my composition. That did not happen in this drawing's background. Does it work? There is a bold, forceful grab here: the viewer is captured by strong, vertical forms, I do believe the white paper ground serves its contrasting purpose. I see the white as definitive space; it is the flat plane in front of which the rest of the composition resides. Notice how Picasso dealt with his background and the negative space; four flat colored areas: blue, yellow, orange, red. Is the viewer bothered by these unidentifiable spaces? No! Instead the multiple compositionally positive forms grab and install the viewer within the composition. The forms are strong enough to support the vague spaces and surfaces Picasso's flat colors depict. This drawing looks better here, in reproduction, than in person. That is unusual. Perhaps it is the up close and personal perusal that brings intimacy to this confusing image; confusing in person, intimate in reproduction? Yes? In any case, I believed I had failed to accomplish my goal. I wished to make every stroke of this pencil drawing relate to every other stroke. I wished the negative and the positive spaces to emote with, and against, one another. Here, in reproduction, I believe I approached my goals. Here, the viewer sees the obvious centering of this composition. The strong center allows the repetitive surrounding swelling forms to sing a tune in harmony, a tune that is the bass beat behind the main theme.
What am I doing? I am looking carefully at the space between the lines, the negative space. I am filling the page with carefully considered forms, forms created by pencil lines. These lines, inherently, leave gaps between one another. These gaps are emotional spaces, ones that create light and darkness, good and evil. My current research is investigation into the emotional satisfaction, personal self-expression, that I may obtain from the space between the lines.
There is something special about this drawing. Excellent Drawing! Perhaps it is its robust use of the page, its vibrant use of the negative space, its dramatic contrasts in forms and in value. Whatever it is, it is definitely another step forward.
Adolph Gottlieb's works have always fascinated me. I know why. I am struggling fro self-expressive potency; my images never fully satisfy me. Gottlieb's works use a simple formula, over and over. Gottlieb uses a round, cleanly organized shape in contrast to an explosive, jumbled shape; in addition, his images exude positive-shape intensity against supportive, residual negative space. The positive shapes are rich, the negative space lends them fierce interest. This contrast, of shapes and space, sings a potent, emotional message. I do not make flat shapes. My complex, three-dimensional forms have greater opportunity to sing emotions than do Gottlieb's simple, flat shapes. I will stay my course. Gottlieb's simple formula educates; his formula lends charge to visual imagery; his exude husky, emotional responses. In this regard, I believe I can go further than Gottlieb. Adolf Gottlieb's limited formula has instructed me; simple contrast has great possibilities; obtaining more accurate self-expression is possible! Chemistry and Physics students are taught of the oppositeness of electrons and positrons — these particles are equal in all ways, size, mass, charge, except their charges are opposite. The positron is the antiparticle, or the antimatter counterpart, of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1 e, a spin of 1/2 (the same as the electron), and has the same mass as an electron. When a positron collides with an electron annihilation is the result; this annihilation produces two or more photons. It is these photons I am trying to create. The photon is a type of elementary particle. It is the quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and photons are the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless; they always move at the speed of light in vacuum. I am trying to move you, the viewers of my art, at the speed of light, with the force of photons. Yesterday I took another step toward this objective. Both the painting, and the drawing, I show today are quickly forceful because they harness the emotional effectiveness of positive versus negative space.
|
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
April 2024
|