 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 2), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"}  Drawing 01·17·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It should not startle, that truth-telling becomes insight and vice-versa. I am waking-up as I am working. Art, and being here being now, are the same thing. Why then, I continually ask, is it so difficult to get to absolute truth? Truth feels like a moving target, but, perhaps, it is I who am moving, while the target is still.
These two, the painting and the drawing I show today, appear to me to be extremely honest. Yet, I am unrelenting in my questioning. I ask, "Is this integrity?" This question drives me to the next answer. Everything I do is a double check on the last thing I did.  Drawing 11·19·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 11·18·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Staying alive and active is paramount. Things are a-poppin'! Invention as simultaneous to being is adamant. Steadfastly I draw in order to exude that which I feel in the moments of feeling and knowing. This is my effort to make the act of production a melding of intellect and emotions. The production is the physical appearance of things called art, drawings and paintings. I have unrelenting determination to make images that construct authentic representation of my innermost knowing and feeling. These art works are me seeking unswerving mindfulness. Yes, I am seeking self-expression at its highest level. I am resolved to make truth while in the act of making-art. This is practice in mindfulness, which, like art, can never reach its ultimate conclusion, its ultimate expression of pure truth and knowledge.
The drawings I show today occurred over two days. I celebrate these as two good steps forward.  Drawing 10·20·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·20·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The Rock of Gibraltar is not the only thing built to last. I am building substantial stuff right now. I am building art to last. These drawings are deep commitments to truth and the way of sun. They are what they are supposed to be, committed to the heaviness, and to the light, that is everlastingly within us all. Solid as a rock, mindful as in the ephemeral moments they witnessed in their transitory experience of becoming real. I can now declare this journey is mindfully an honest one.
 Drawing 10·16·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.4, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Deciphering truth is living with circumstances. These drawings are boldly without guile, thus bold questions that are answered as possibilities; there is success and there is failure. These are things unresolved. These drawings are clues to a better tomorrow. Here, in front of you, are emotional and intellectual questions. All of them are accepted as research. That is, here are serious steps toward a better and more lucid reflection upon myself and my self-expression. Come what may, these are exercises in behaving well.
 Drawing 10·15·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am working hard to make real the success I seek. Yet success is essentially impossible, at least essential success is impossible. This trek I am on leads somewhere, but not to a where that is known or defined. Given that truth, of truth being impossible, true success is impossible. Along the way, snippets of it can be, and are, viewed. This happened yesterday. Despite my inability to be totally happy with any one work of art that I make, I am happy that a step I made has a glimmer of truth in it. Each step is mushy, without the solidity of full truth, but yesterday's work did yield enough of a true answer to impassion me with the desire to go back and try again. I will do that now.
 Drawing 08·28·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I feel I am getting closer to the central theme of my own vision, my own true voice. This drawing feels like a true step, one in the right direction. Time will tell if this is truth or delusion.
 Drawing 07·28·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 07·28·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Perfection is a myth. Some questions can be answered. No sophisticated question can be answered with a perfectly correct sophisticated answer. Why is the sand wet? "Because the the sea weed!" That is NOT the correct answer. Sand being wet is NOT confusing. But the answer to the question of it being wet can be deceptively given, albeit humorous. This is not my game. I am trying to go right at myself, right at self-expression. No deception here. Yesterday's drawings were two steps in the right direction.
Have you noticed? I have not been painting a lot! Well, after making yesterday's drawings, I believe major paintings are coming. Drawings are my first experiments with truth. Paintings require me to extend my truth-making over days, sometimes months. I must feel truth deeply in order to sustain a painting. There is so much substantial truth in these two drawings that I believe they are harbingers of great paintings to come.  Drawing 07·14·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Paring down to the essential and the absolutely necessary is not an easy task. I am gonna do this. It is important because I have relied too long on complexity to overwhelm myself; distraction by tons of information comes easy to me. Within the overwhelmingness there is truth, but there is a lot of falderal as well. My job is to make truth. Truth is simple; truth is difficult to comprehend; truth is tough to depict visually. Truth is available despite the duplicity in every human effort. Self-deceit is easy; clear-eyed truth is difficult. Truth requires hard decisions. Deceit comes easily by slipping and sliding into the undemanding, the available, the comfortable, the entertaining, the sweetness that is momentary self-satisfaction. Yesterday's drawing is not the best drawing I have ever done, but it is a move in the direction toward simple truth.
 "Clever Liars" (2020 No.1, state 09), oil on canvas, 56½x47½ inches {"Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't!" - anonymous}  Drawing 06·20·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I have high standards, in my art and in my relationships. It is my high sense of morality that keeps me true to myself, and true, or not true, to others. This Covid-19 era has forced me to look acutely at me, my here and now; it has awoken me, instigated higher awareness of myself and the people who are in my life, in my relationships. People, and my Art, presently appear to be starkly revealing, in some cases diametrical when compared to my view before the Covid-19 onslaught; it has brought extreme clarity. I am proceeding in a measured way, both with ideas concerning Art and ideas concerning relationships. Amazing it is, that it took a pandemic to force me to slow-mo into higher consciousness. As I age, as I see death and disease around me, I am sharply aware that my time must be taken very seriously; there is a limited quantity. I do not want to waste any of my existence on falderal or useless behavior.
Yesterday's work is dedicated to problem solving. What do I want to represent me? More, how do my momentary needs get translated into visual images? I deeply feel my "needs"; this is about emotion, intuition, walking a path, leaving detritus that represents my true self.  Drawing 04·21·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 04·21·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The recesses of mental and emotive nuance are many. The game I play is finding hidden truths. But, why are they hidden? It is our human capacity to be persuaded by optimism; optimism produces false and distorted memories. I want to believe I am well. I want to believe I am whole. I want to believe I have dignity, I want to believe I am intelligent; all this desire distorts truth. Truth telling is difficult because truth is diffused by desire. Yes, I desire to make art so true and fine as to be immediately recognized as true and fine. However, no easy road to truth exists.
Daily, I show up in the studio. Daily, I seek to make visual truth. Today I show you yesterday's efforts. I believe they are very good; very good, meaning they are authentic steps toward truth-telling. |
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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 2021
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