September 30, 2005
Untitled (Kurt Weil)
Untitled (Kurt Weil), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 420 x 400 pixels (image used without permission)
September 29, 2005
Untitled (Clay vs. Warner)
Untitled (Clay vs. Warner), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 560 x 700 pixels (image used without permission)
September 28, 2005
Interview with Vincent Romaniello
Vincent Romaniello’s exhibit at Gallery Siano— The Urban Canvas (September 30 – October 29, 2005)— is a genuine tour de force. Most importantly, it is a solo exhibition of a significant new body of work consisting of paintings, assemblages, and works on paper, all influenced by the structures, colors, surfaces, and layers found in urban environments in general, but particularly in Philadelphia, near where he lives.
The gallery is also showing videos that Vince makes about artists and their work and streams from his website, a generous act that puts the spotlight on others and makes an important documentary and educational contribution to the art scene. At the same time, Gallery Siano also hosts a group exhibition co-curated and organized by Vince that includes invited artists from the videos and the weblogging world, further proof of his commitment to creating opportunities for colleagues (full disclosure: I am included in the group show).
For more information and images please see InLiquid's feature article about The Urban Canvas. Links to the different artist videos in the series called Artists Varied Stripes are at the bottom of the page.
The following conversation between Vincent Romaniello and Chris Ashley was conducted via email during August and September, 2005. Vince lives and works in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Chris lives and works in Oakland and Berkeley, California.
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Chris Ashley: Architecture, or architectural structure, seems pretty central to your most recent work. Is this something that you have used in your painting all along, even in earlier work where it might not be quite as obvious, or is this a newer development?
Vincent Romaniello: It is a fairly recent development, since 9/11 actually. Looking back over my work from the beginning it falls into three major bodies. The first was figurative, in what one writer called an "old masters" style. I found that remark funny, as if you only had to push a button and there you have that style. The second is what I would call atmospheric abstraction. And the third, which includes my current work, is where I combine an organic and a structural element to arrive at what I feel is a better reflection of the world we live in.
CA: Can you break these different bodies of work into specific time periods and locations where you lived?
VR: I think where I lived at a given time could have affected my work, and probably did, but I don’t really know. I believe that there are many layers of things that cause my work change. I will give you an example. When I moved to New York City in 1990 I really got serious about painting. When you study painting it is a pretty natural thing to paint the figure, especially in class. You also look at a lot of work from the masters as part of your learning experience. I loved the color of Renaissance paintings and thought I could incorporate that into the modernist imagery that I was doing before I moved there from San Francisco. Instead, I got seduced into the whole humanistic philosophy that went along with the techniques. But I think I was also reacting to New York. I loved it there, but I did miss some of the beauty of California, and New York seemed anything but humanistic, especially when I first got there.
Now I live in a suburb of Philadelphia and miss the things that large cities have to offer. So again, I am reacting against where I live, or maybe I can see things better when I am removed from them. I find the architecture of the city, both new and old and in transition, inspiring.
CA: How have you moved from one body of work to another?
VR: I don’t know exactly. Here is another example: during the attacks of 9/11 I was doing a series based on the four elements- fire, water, air, and earth. By chance, the piece that was to be "fire" had this central shape in the underpainting that reminded me of a large building. The rest of the painting had passages that strongly resembled plumes of smoke. I left this as part of the elements in the series, but in fact it was the first step in a major change that would slowly evolve into what I am doing now.
The very next paintings were three pieces that I called "Smoky Bars on the Silk Road", which were consciously meant to be about the attacks of 9/11. The strongest image that stayed with me from the attacks was that of huge metal beams stuck into the ground with smoke all around them, and I translated that into this set of three paintings.
Realizing that using these hard-edged, straight bars was a major change for me, I began to think about these geometric elements in my work in a more formal sense. I saw that throughout art history, sometimes even in the most idyllic landscapes, straight lines could be found maybe in a farmhouse, a fence, windmills, etc. In portraits you find the subjects posed leaning on a ledge, near a window, or seated at a table. The seamless backdrop is a modern construct.
I thought about structure more and realized that these things were never natural phenomenon, but were only made by humans. This seems obvious, I know, but sometimes the obvious becomes more important in a given context. I then felt like it was escapist to leave out these human-made marks because we have made our presence felt everywhere on this planet and beyond.
You can find structural elements in some of my earlier work, but I wasn't conscious of how important a decision it was to use them at the time.
CA: The idea that these kinds of structures are always human-made is interesting; why do we pursue these kinds of shapes and edges? What draws us to straight lines and corners? We ourselves aren’t really straight and hard, although our orientation to the ground is more or less ninety degrees, or at least there is the idea of being perpendicular to the ground while also resisting gravity.
VR: I think we are looking for some kind of order in our lives. After recently seeing the film Grizzly Man I wonder now if maybe we are subconsciously afraid of nature. Another movie comes to mind, Walkabout, where after being lost and walking around in the outback they finally come upon a house. And you really take notice of the flat surfaces that humans like so much, like a patio or a road, and that our shoes are meant for those flat surfaces. Many of these things are used to tame the earth so it conforms better to our bodies. We make chairs so we can sit comfortably, and we need a flat surface to put the chairs on, and so on.
CA: In another discussion we had you mentioned your theory about the use of hard and straight edges in a painting, and how the actual painting itself doesn’t have straight edge. In other words a canvas’s surface and edges can actually seem somewhat soft. Can you elaborate on this theory, and talk about how it works in your paintings, or the work of other people that you like?
VR: Most everything I do in my artwork has three aspects. First, there are the formal: things I am thinking about and want to try, or the use of color, contrast, relationships to shapes, etc. Then there are the things that affect me in my life: my family, friends, war and other world issues, and so on. And the third aspect is the unconscious, which I feel I need to use but do not want to control.
Even though most canvases, paper, wood panels and other supports artists use have straight edges, the four sides that make them up, this is entirely different than when you make a straight edge somewhere on the interior of the painting’s surface. I think by using a box, line, rule or other straight-edged mark or shape you instantly create order in the work and also signal, on some level, that the human presence is there. I use tape or other tools to make a perfectly straight edge and have to mix the paint to the right consistency so it doesn’t move around freely, and this all comes through to the viewer. I believe we are all hard-wired from when we are born with countless signals we can recognize. One thing all artists hear from non-artists even when they are very young is, “that is great, I can’t even draw a straight line.” People think if one uses a straight line there is some kind of special talent involved and respect that even if they don’t like the image.
If an artist only uses straight-edged shapes they’re called geometric artists. The Cubists used them, as did the Futurists, because they knew people would get the feeling of the work being Modern. Before that, if geometric elements were used it was used in a smaller role. People were proud of their achievements in architecture and other technological advances in the Renaissance, but the difference there was that man was still at the center.
CA: I want to follow up on two things you touched upon above- the unconscious and conscious aspects of your art. You specifically mentioned the unconscious as one side of your work, perhaps as a source of some of your subject matter and images, but particularly in relation to how the unconscious is connected to the way that we are “hardwired” to respond to images, marks, space, texture, color, texture, and so on. So I want to ask you about how the unconscious is part of your own creative process and how you make your work
At the same time, you mention various artistic intentions throughout history, which are of course very conscious aspects of making art. Artists do this all the time: “I do this so that the viewer will respond like that.” This is something more than formal intentions- it has to do with the subject, meaning, and experience of your work. So aside from the three sides of your work that you mention- the formal, the personal, and the unconscious- is there a fourth side, too, which would be your conscious intentions about the subject, meaning, and look of your work?
VR: The unconscious aspect is openness to feelings and things that are deeper than the surface, and I want to be free enough to let that come out in the work. When I am starting a new series I don’t think about all of the different sides at work. I might have a kernel of an idea and work on it. By working I mean I spend a lot of time- days, weeks, months and longer- to try and get something that I am after to work. I will do works on paper for months. When I start I try out a lot of little ideas I have had. The individual paintings or drawings don’t seem like they belong to one another at that stage because it is too early for me to focus. Later when I find something I feel has possibilities I can then start working within some parameters. It does take work, and work to me is still a process of discovery.
This is where “conscious intention” comes in, but only after I have worked for a while and can then set up some mental guidelines for myself. Painting has so many possibilities that I feel like I need either a concept or a set of graphic devises before I can create a series. But even then I am still open to new things happening during the process
CA: This newer work you're showing at Gallery Siano seems to combine the more rigid structure with the atmospheric effects of previous work. Is this correct? And your color is definitely more urban, more like concrete and wood, than some of your previous work, especially the earlier work on paper with vertical divisions and brighter color. Is there something about this combination of structure and atmosphere that made you need to identify a different palette?
VR: Yes, this work has both structural and organic elements used together, just like everything around us. I am definitely aware that I made a big change in this new work. It doesn’t really take much for the work to look different. The reason this happened is because I wanted to work much larger, and because I felt like the space at Gallery Siano demanded it. That meant that it wasn’t practical to work on wood panels. Also, I didn’t like the idea of making colored panels and stripes that were six feet tall. But the way the work looks, the subject matter came from the influence of the urban landscape. I am still using hard edges, bars, panels, and organic passages, but I want an exhibition to be an installation, not just a group of individual pieces. When I say organic here, I am including the look of aged materials like concrete, brick, old torn signs, etc. These things come about over a long period of time, made by rust, pollution, weather, and countless other natural processes.
The current work comes from my experience working on videos around the streets of Philadelphia, mostly, and also from Miami, New York, and other places I have lived or visited. When I came back from shooting video in Miami I thought more about how each city seems to have its own palette. The colors that make up Miami was obvious to me, but I had to think about it more in Philadelphia. I came up with blue and brown as the two main colors. One of the things I find here is that the colors that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) uses have a big impact. Another place this palette comes from is the fact that large parts of the city are poor, and that the people didn’t have the money to update their homes. So we have colors that were used many years ago that are still here; in fact, many from the time Edward Hopper was painting. These were cheap industrial colors like red ochre. I remember hearing that in Siena, Italy the reason the city has so many older buildings than other places in the country is because the plague wiped out a huge number of people and the city and the citizens were too broke to build new buildings, so they restored what they had. In parts of Philadelphia the same thing is happening, and I believe that saving older styles of architecture is a good thing.
CA: In a brief interview elsewhere (http://falsestart.org/vincentromaniello.html) you talked about how you first recognized at a very early age that you wanted to be an artist You drew well, and people admired and encourage that. You also played drums, and you have been involved in many different arts: acting, set design, graphic design, music, painting, sculpting and recently video. How did you move from wanting to become an artist and through all those other arts to where you are now?
VR: I think I became an artist for much the same reason that someone who grows to be seven feet tall ends up playing basketball. You see the possibilities based on how you feel and what others say about your talents, and then you start working. Little by little you get more and more serious, devote more time, sacrifice other things to paint or play music, and before you know it you are hooked. Being an artist takes a lot more work than I thought it would. And it gives back much less than what you put into it, but sometimes there is a reward, even if only you perceive it, and that almost makes it worth it. Many days I ask myself why in the hell do I do this? Making the videos is different though; I learned a lot by doing the videos because they aren’t about me. The videos are for showcasing other artists, not myself. They are not about me on many levels. If you ask most people who directed a certain movie, chances are they won’t have any idea. When you watch a movie you aren’t thinking about the director. Of course in this case I am the cameraman, and I do the sound, editing, interviewing, and so on.
CA: You’ve been producing videos about local artists and serving them from your own website for over a year now. It’s a very generous, community-oriented informational service that you provide, and your focus has been very broad, featuring artists engaged in very different kinds of subject matter and mediums. I’m sure you’ve gotten a lot out of it as well. I want to ask you about this, but I want to keep the spotlight on you: how has this engagement with a diverse range of artists affected your sense of the purpose of art, the reality of an arts community, and has this had any direct impact on your work in terms of subject, color, size, or your standards of success for your own work?
VR: I don’t think that interacting with the artists in their studios has affected my work directly in any of the ways you mentioned- color, subject, size. I have always been motivated and ambitious, and have more ideas than is probably good for me. During the taping it is funny how many artists say they are influenced by the same types of things, but it always comes out in a totally different way in their work. So even if I tried to incorporate something it would come out very different. I have learned technical things about encaustic for instance, but have no desire to use those things, at this point anyway.
The reality of the arts communities here and elsewhere, as far as the videos go, is that I have found the reception tepid. I also have had very little notice or even links from the blogging and vlogging world. I do have a few supporters, and I do appreciate their help in getting the word out so that the artists will get the attention they deserve.
My only agenda is to put the artists in the best light, and to help people understand their work better. Sure, I like hanging out with the artists and seeing their studios, but what I would love to see is more exposure for the artists nationally as well as locally. It is a whole different experience to do something for and about other people, completely different than being alone in the studio working on a painting. I have been fortunate this past year to be able to devote time to this project. I understand that most artists can hardly find time to do their work, let alone do things for other people, but if you can do so I recommend it highly.
CA: You’ve worked really hard the past few months on a body of work for this show at Gallery Siano in Philadelphia. This show has been even more labor for you because you’re also showing the artist videos, and you’ve organized an accompanying group show. After the show opens you’ll have time to catch your breath. I wonder if you have some sense of what directions your work might go next. After this intense period of working what leads are you likely to follow next?
VR: One of the best reasons to have a show is to get a dialog going with the people who see your work. That is why art criticism can be a good thing, good when it is well done. I hope to get feedback from a wide variety of people who are interested in the arts, and even those who aren’t necessarily art lovers. I will ask those people and artists I know what they think is the strongest piece, for instance. I am sure I will continue in this general direction, but because it is a large show I have tried out a lot of new ideas. If it were a smaller space I would have probably done an entirely different series of work. I continued to paint after the show was complete and the few pieces I did were more geometric and less organic. They remind me of graffiti removal but with a lot more happening. But what usually happens is that I have two or three series going at the same time. I heard once that there are two kinds of artists. The vertical artist stays on a course that is pretty straight, and seems to follow a logical progression that is clear. Then there are the horizontal artists who try many different things over their careers. I fall into the second group. I realize that the vertical artists are better rewarded by the gallery and museum systems, but I don’t agree with them, and I’ll do as Henry Miller wrote, “paint as you like and die happy.”
Chris Ashley
Oakland, CA 2005
Untitled (Beetle)
Untitled (Beetle), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 290 x 600 pixels (image used without permission
September 27, 2005
Untitled (Brautigan, Ferlinghetti)
Untitled (Brautigan, Ferlinghetti), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 545 x 540 pixels (image used without permission)
September 26, 2005
Untitled (Dave Clark Five)
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Untitled (Dave Clark Five), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 290 x 370 pixels (image used without permission)
Rhizome Community Campaign
I belong to Rhizome.org and you might want to, too. About Rhizome.org's Community Campaign:
Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways. We foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything we do.
Rhizome launched its membership drive, the Community Campaign, on September 19th. We are trying to raise $25,000 by December 1st. Please help us meet our goal! This targeted amount will go into strengthening our current programs, including our annual cycle of new media art commissions, our editorial publications (Net Art News and the Rhizome Digest), and our online discussions and exhibitions. It will also go into seeding our energy into new initiatives. This is a very exciting time for the organization, and a great time to get involved. Please consider becoming a Rhizome Member or making a donation today!
September 25, 2005
Untitled (Verde Antique)
Untitled (Verde Antique), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 480 x 600 pixels (image used without permission)
September 24, 2005
Untitled (Deerhunters)
Untitled (Deerhunters), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 400 x 500 pixels (image used without permission)
September 23, 2005
Untitled (Woman, Vampire)
Untitled (Woman, Vampire), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 532 x 652 pixels (image used without permission)
John McLaughlin
I was glad to see this review by Grace Glueck in today's NYT (that link will probably expire) of a show of John McLaughlin's paintings. He is well-known on the West Coast but still seldom seen. His work has meant a lot to me since I first saw it over twenty five years ago. As Glueck says, " McLaughlin's paintings do not really lend themselves to verbal description. See them, let your eye romp and your mind fall into them."
John McLaughlin
Ameringer Yohe Fine Art
20 West 57th Street, Manhattan
Through Oct. 1
Both Paintings John McLaughlin.Once much appreciated by artists, collectors and curators, but somewhat lost in the shuffle of today's art world, the self-taught painter John McLaughlin (1898-1976) lived in Southern California for his last three decades. There he made reductive paintings remarkable for their intense quietude amid the hubbub of the West Coast art scene. Born to a cultivated Boston family, McLaughlin early on developed an appreciation for Asian art, eventually zeroing in on Japan. His experiences of that country's life and culture, especially of the 16th-century Zen and literati painters,
may have deepened the meditative sensibility that informs his work, but he was also beholden to the radically reductive "spiritual" Suprematism of the Russian painter Kasimir Malevich.
McLaughlin didn't begin painting full time until he was pushing 50. "My aim is to achieve the totally abstract," he said, and the works on view in this small show, dating from the 1960's and 70's and mostly in black and white, come close to that goal, if anything devised by human hand can really be considered "totally abstract." Austere, yes. Bars - vertical and horizontal - rectangles, empty spaces and fields of solid color inflected by stripes characterize this late work, which seems to point toward Minimalism but does not relate at all to its industrially derived aesthetic and prepossessing size.
A canvas like "Untitled" (c. 1965), whose cream-colored ground is divided down the middle by a vertical stripe, itself divided vertically in half, one-half black, the other dead white, plays with the eye's perception of symmetry while at the same time offering it a restful expanse of space. Other good works present the eye with teasing figure-ground relationships, like one from 1960 consisting of black horizontal bars separated by eight white ones.
But McLaughlin's paintings do not really lend themselves to verbal description. See them, let your eye romp and your mind fall into them.
GRACE GLUECK
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/arts/design/23gall.html?pagewanted=print
Top: #7, 1966, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 x 1 1/8 in. (152.4 x 121.9 x 2.9 cm), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alan C. Lerner 82.37.
Bottom: Y-1957, 1957, oil on canvas, 48 x 34 (121.9 x w: 86.4 cm), Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York.
September 22, 2005
Untitled (Stingray)
Untitled (Stingray), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 420 x 660 pixels (image used without permission)
Guide Aims to Help Bloggers Beat Censors
Guide Aims to Help Bloggers Beat Censors
A Paris-based media watchdog has released a free guide with tips for bloggers and dissidents to sneak past Internet censors in countries from China to Iran.Reporters Without Borders' "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents" is partly financed by the French Foreign Ministry and includes technical advice on how to remain anonymous online. It was launched at the Apple Expo computer show in Paris on Thursday and can be downloaded in Chinese, Arabic, Persian, English and French...
In a bid to inspire budding Web diarists around the world, the 87-page booklet gives advice on setting up and running blogs, and on using pseudonyms and anonymous proxies, which can be used to replace easily traceable home computer addresses...
The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation also published an online guide this year to help Web diarists keep their blogs anonymous. That includes pointers on anonymizing technologies, including the EFF's own Tor, and tips on keeping postings out of search engines. The guide, though, was mostly aimed at preventing firings rather than bypassing censorship.
RSF handbook: http://www.rsf.org
EFF guide: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/blog- anonymously.php
September 21, 2005
Untitled (Hands, Child, Bull)
Untitled (Hands, Child, Bull), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 431 x 650 pixels (image used without permission)
September 20, 2005
Untitled (Lapidary Saw)
Untitled (Lapidary Saw), 2005 HTML & JPEG, 400 x 600 pixels (image used without permission)
September 19, 2005
Untitled (Deer, Child, Hands)
Untitled (Deer, Child, Hands) 2005, HTML & JPEG, 360 x 440 pixels (image used with permission)
Labels
Today I shipped five framed drawings titled Qinglü to Gallery Siano in Philadelphia; I made three labels for the back of each. The top label is the usual basic info about the work, the middle label is a longish statement about this series, and the bottom shows a thumbnail of each of the five drawings in the series. Very easy to make custom labels with the free Avery software that you can download.
September 18, 2005
Untitled (Speedway Grand Prix)
Untitled (Speedway Grand Prix), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 480 x 638 pixels (image used without permission)
September 17, 2005
Untitled (Willie Mays)
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Untitled (Willie Mays), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 400 x 750 pixels (image used without permission)
September 16, 2005
Untitled (Elmore James, Jimmy Page)
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Untitled (Elmore James, Jimmy Page), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 410 x 610 pixels (images used without permission)
September 15, 2005
Untitled (Husqvarna Riders 20 & 22)
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Untitled (Husqvarna Riders 20 & 22), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 540 x 580 pixels (image used without permission)
Untitled (Reds) 1-5
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Untitled (Reds) 1-5, 2005 (September), pencil, watercolor & ink on paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
Untitled (Blue, Green & Orange) 1-5
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Untitled (Blue, Green & Orange) 1-5, 2005 (September), watercolor & ink on paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
September 14, 2005
Untitled (Man, Tent, President, Hats)
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Untitled (Man, Tent, President, Hats), 2005, 400 x 660 pixels (image used without permission)
Towards Crossmaglen 1-5
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Towards Crossmaglen 1-5, 2005 (September), pencil, watercolor & ink on paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
Four for W.A.A.
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Four for W.A.A., 2005 (September), Pencil, watercolor & ink on Rives BFP cream paper, 4 panels, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
Qinglü (Album Two, 1-10)
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Qinglü (Album Two, 1-10), 2005 (September), Pencil, watercolor & ink on Rives BFP cream paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
September 13, 2005
Untitled (Man, Finger, Draft Card, Flame, 1969)
Untitled (Man, Finger, Draft Card, Flame, 1969), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 400 x 600 pixels (image used without permission)
September 12, 2005
Untitled (Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock)
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Untitled (Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 530 x 777 pixels (image used without permission)
September 11, 2005
Untitled (Nixon in China)
Untitled (Nixon in China), 20050911, HTML & JPEG, 340 x 460 pixels (image used without permission)
September 10, 2005
Untitled (1971 Road Runner)
Untitled (1971 Road Runner), 2005, HTML & JPEG, 420 x 640 pixels (image used without permission)
Richard Schur's "Untitled" 2005
Richard Schur, Untitled, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 25 cm
The fine-weave canvas of Richard Schur's Untitled, 2005 is stretched over a thin wood stretcher, the front edges of which are rounded, so the painting doesn't have a a surface that is simply a taut, flat, pictorial plane. Instead the eyes follow the fabric surface around to the edge, and because of this the viewer becomes aware that the painting has a thickness that makes it more than just a picture. This awareness is further enhanced by the how the panes of color wrap around to cover about one quarter of the edge with paint. This makes each pane appear to have a depth: although each colored area is a quite thin layer of paint, the way the paint goes around the edge creates the illusion that each area of color could instead be a quarter inch thick tile laid on a support.
This painting has four kinds of edges: 1] the frayed edge of color where the paint seeps out from hand-placed, non-square strips of tape used to define the colored areas (disrupted or imperfectly functioning technology); 
2] the soft rounded edge where the canvas bends around to the side of the stretcher (mass produced readymade- industrial technology); 3] the brushy, crusty edge of paint on the side of the stretcher made by the action of making the painting (the eye-guided movement of the hand holding a medium-specific technolgy- the brush); and 4] the edge created where the back side of the stretcher meets the wall when it's hung (an effect incidental to architectural and electric technology).
There are six kinds of space in this painting: 1] the flat panes of roughly rectangular color on a flat plane (pictorial); 2] the overlapping of one pane over another, for example, the red on the top right is obviously on top of both the yellow and the umber areas (physical); 3] the push and pull of panes via the hue and intensity of color (chromatics); 4] the atmospheric space of the orange on the bottom that overlaps the umber which allows the original edge of umber and some of the umber to peek through the orange (painterly); 5] each colored pane's appearance as a thick slab or tile laid on a surface (illusion); and 6] the integrated object comprising wood, cloth, and paint that is independent from but hangs on a wall (holistic). All of these kinds of space are aspects representation.
The top and bottom sections are nearly identical in height. One can imagine mixing the yellow on the top left and the red on the top right to make the orange at the bottom. The umber band is a neutralizing gap between the two colors above mixing into the single color below. This gap does two things: it's a hollow space behind the other three colors; and it's a plaza, a place for the viewer to linger before moving to the top of the painting into a space made by the red and yellow.
Imagine that the yellow continues towards the right underneath the red. The red's left edge overlaps the yellow and hangs just a slight nudge down into the umber; it's in that little gap at the edge of the hanging red that a small entry opens into a narrow space between the yellow and red. The vertical edge of the red is not ninety degrees; it leans forward, like a door slightly ajar. This is the single occurence in the painting of a kind of constructed, architectural space into which the viewer can enter, first with the eyes, then in conscious recognition with imagination, and then with the body, even if it's just our face trying to peer around a corner, and even more if we feel ourselves pulled into this little space, shoulder leaning in, heel lifting in a light step forward. We can imagine ourselves slipping into that narrow space between yellow and red where the light of these two colors glows and reflect and becomes orange.
This is a painting of four colored panes that is arithmetically orange, and it is a painting of a hidden orange space. In this calculation and this allusion it contains the surprise of unexpected representation of color, space, and light that the viewer carries away from it.
Chris Ashley
Oakland, CA, September 2005
Richard Schur catalogues
I received a package the other day from Richard Schur: a painting and two catalogues. Read about the painting on another post.
The catalogues:
The Universial Painting catalogue for the exhibit of German painters touring museums in China:
The Munich School catalogue:
September 09, 2005
Untitled (Boy, Red Sweats, Gun)
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Untitled (Boy, Red Sweats, Gun), 20050909, HTML & JPEG, 420 x 880 pixels (image used without permission)
Untitled 1-5
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Untitled 1-5, 2005 (September), Pencil, watercolor & ink on paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
September 08, 2005
Untitled (Bus, Car, Emergency Workers)
Untitled (Bus, Car, Emergency Workers), 20050908, HTML & JPEG, 500 x 640 pixels (image used without permission)
September 07, 2005
Final Five Past Picks
These are the final five out of a thirty sort of "Best of" from the past nearly two years of daily HTML drawings. That's it. Tomorrow, a drawing.
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8. Today in Iraq (May 12, 2005: Oil infrastructure attacked in Kirkuk), May 22, 2005, HTML, 522 x 600 pixels
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Cinematic Dataculture (-empyre- 1), June 1, 2005, HTML, 505 x 475 pixels
Theoretically Motivated Camp (-empyre- 28), June 28, 2005, HTML 550 x 570 pixels
Five, July 27, 2005, HTML, 322 x 622 pixels
Four, July 28, 2005, HTML, 404 x 344 pixels
September 06, 2005
Chimney Rock 1-5
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Chimney Rock 1-5, 2005 (August), Pencil, watercolor & ink on paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each (scanned)
Five Additional Five Past Picks
These are five out of a thirty sort of "Best of" from the past nearly two years of daily HTML drawings.
Proposal for Four Windows, March 9, 2005, HTML, 260 x 180 pixels each
Compare Loan Quotes | Home Business Connection | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Opportunities 7 & 8, March 13, 2005, HTML, 220 x 260 pixels each
Willie McCovey, April 14, 2005, HTML, 540 x 180 pixels
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The Infinite Line: Utopia, April 30, 2005, HTML, 583 x 599 pixels
From Untitle 1-12, May 6, 2005, HTML, 464 X 464 pixels
September 05, 2005
Yet Five More Past Picks
These are five out of a thirty sort of "Best of" from the past nearly two years of daily HTML drawings.
Zen Arcade, Side 1, November 30, 2004, HTML, 594 x 575 pixels
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The Sleeping Spinner, December 15, 2004, HTML 549 x 489 pixels
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From Untitled 1-21, January 09 & 15, 2005, HTML, 500 x 460 pixels each
Untitled 9 & 10, February 25, 2005, HTML, 380 x 300 pixels each
September 04, 2005
Another Five Past Picks
These are five out of a thirty sort of &uot;Best of" from the past nearly two years of daily HTML drawings.
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heave, huff (mouthsounds), July 06, 2004, HTML, 418 x 270 pixels each
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Untitled 2 (Occidental, Sonoma, California), August 22, 2004, HTML, 220 x 720 pixels
Untitled (Blue & Green) , September 11, 2004, HTML, 320 x 240 pixels
(L) Er Verschwand (für mein Vater auf seinem Geburtstag), (M) Ihr Verblasst, (R) Sie Vermeidet, October 08 & 26 & 30, 2004, HTML, 198 x 162 pixels
September 03, 2005
Five More Pasts Picks
These are five out of a thirty sort of "Best of" from the past nearly two years of daily HTML drawings.
From Dasarâjadharma: Ten Principles of Good Governance
(L) 7: Akskodha - Absence of anger
(R) 10: Avirodha - Absence of obstruction
March 1 & 4, 2005, HTML, 234 x 198 pixels
dukka, March 24, 2004, HTML, 380 x 340 pixels
The Last Light at the End of the Branch, April 25, 2004, HTML, 240 x 475 pixels
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Three Edges (Gold) VI, June 03, 2004, HTML , 396 x 396 pixels
September 02, 2005
Five Past Picks
Five drawings (or sets) from the past that I feel hold up to... uh, my expectations. More over the next three days or so.
Lassen, November 11, 2003, HTML, 360 x 320 pixels
El Pacific cerca Baja California, January 13, 2004, HTML, 440 x 600 pixels
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| [9] Bakula holds a mongoose. | [10] Rahula holds a jewelled tiara. | [11] Chudapantaka has both hands in meditation. | [12] Pindola Bharadvaja holds a book and begging bowl. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
9-12 of 16 Arhats, January 21, 2004, HTML, 280 x 200 pixels each
Arhat [4]: Subinda, January 26, 2004, HTML, 480 x 420 pixels
Lohans 9 & 10: Open Heart & Raised Hand, February 12, 2004, HTML, 242, 220 pixels each
Richard Tuttle Podcast at SFMOMA
Ahhh, this is very interesting: SFMOMA is offering a podcast exhibition guide of the The Art of Richard Tuttle. It's offered in three flavors: RSS for an aggregator, an M4A for for photo capable iPods, and an MP3 audio-only tour. Neat.
Richard Tuttle
New Mexico, New York #14, 1998
Acrylic on plywood
Collection of Susan Harris and Glenn Gissler, New York
© Richard Tuttle
September 01, 2005
Steve Karlik at Minus Space
Steve Karlik's paintings are formally refined yet generous in spirit, grounded in materials yet spatial and open. His work is that of a serious painter, at first seeming almost severe, yet with time revealing itself as sensual, emotional, and beautiful. A thoughtful viewer will find that his reductive forms can resonate with one's memory, references, and experiences; the associations one makes with his work are varied and surprising. The paintings involve our eyes, minds, and bodies. His work is scaled to our physical presence, but brings about in us a dual response — it is both intimate and monumental. If the personal is political, then the politics of Steve's work are a belief in the importance of the individual and a responsibility to the collective; in the viewer's heightened experience is found the significance of our connection to each other — the possibility of a simultaneously singular and shared meaning. - Chris Ashley, August 2005
The following conversation between Steve Karlik and Chris Ashley was conducted via email from April to July 2005, and included a studio visit in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, on May 20, 2005.
Chris Ashley: Steve, why don’t we start with some basics: where are you from, and how did you become a painter?
Steve Karlik: I was born in 1960 and grew up surrounded by nature in rural Oregon, outside Portland to be exact. One day in my mid 20’s, I started painting because it gave me the latitude to reflect on the texture of the land as I experienced it. I’d been looking at James Lavadour’s paintings of eastern Oregon, and my first paintings were these gray-to-sepia blurs, washy landscape references with a few recognizable features. My only concern was pushing landscape painting further into abstraction until I was introduced head-on to Mark Rothko’s work. The washy fields I was painting then began to lose their landscape reference to something more non-objective. I attended Portland State University in 1990 and studied painting under Mel Katz, a Post-Minimalist sculptor from New York who introduced me to thinking about art in a pragmatic manner. When I got to Portland State, I was surprised because my studio was in the same building where Rothko learned math as a child. In 1995, I was accepted into the graduate program at Pratt Institute and moved to New York.
At Pratt I studied under Ted Kurahara and Linda Francis, and developed friendships with the Brazilian painter Daniel Feingold, and future Minus Space artists Mathew Deleget and Rossana Martínez. In 1996, I saw two important exhibitions that made a lot of sense: the Ellsworth Kelly retrospective at the Guggenheim; and the wall-mounted oil stick planes by Richard Serra at Mathew Marks. Kelly and Serra began to express for me critical art that pushed the relationships of form and space, and used those relationships to engage the viewer directly. Immediately after Pratt I found a studio in DUMBO (the Brooklyn neighborhood Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), and I now live and paint in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
CA: You entered graduate school in your thirties, an age later than seems typical these days. What were you doing before then? What difference do you think your age may have made in your approach to graduate school, the work you did there, and the path you took afterwards?
SK: Before graduate school I was a book binder. I did that for about ten years. It was kind of a cool profession with lots of hands-on work. My age was a factor then in the kind of art I produced. I'd been in a trade for ten years where the production process was meticulous and extremely demanding. A strong sense of craftsmanship was essential, and you had to turn out a well-crafted product in large volume at high speed. I was twenty-seven at the time, and just entering art school as an undergraduate — I remember taking a lot of what I practiced at work into the studio. I had a studio for a while where I worked in the loft space above the production floor. I would work at night using the equipment below to produce art. I made a series of reductive forms that for the first time really followed an exact process determined by the materials. I would eventually use mylar and multiple layers of an industrial tape that was thick and soft, semi-transparent and amber-colored. As the layers built up, I would take the work-in-progress to the hydraulic cutter, apply clamped pressure (about 600 lbs per square inch) and clean it up with the hydraulic knife. I wish I still had some examples; the surfaces were packed and had the appearance of layered bands of raw beeswax. It was really then that I started developing a personal aesthetic.
CA: Bookbinding as a craft is, of course, very hands-on and visual. I think it’s fascinating that you were doing this other kind of visual work before painting, and that bookbinding lent its materials to the beginning of your making visual art. It sounds like you came to making art mostly on your own. How did making a painting with tape turn into painting with paint?
SK: The overall experience in the shop seductively smelled of drying ink, lacquer, and paper; it felt like a place where art was being made. I worked on a printing press setting up dies and locking in forms for the purpose of scoring book and magazine covers so they wouldn't crack when folded. These were basically locked-in steel structures that held scoring blades sandwiched between wood and lead strips of different widths and point degrees. The sheet would run over this die while moving around a large drum.
We had to sometimes shim the die to make it score deeper, and pack the drum with paper backing to protect it. Some of the runs were long and the drum would take a beating. When the run was over, the press was cleaned with lacquer thinner. There would be a deposit of dust, ink, oil, lead and tape on the backing sheets, a transferred film or stain that was a silky gray green. It wasn't long before I started seeing abstractly into the by-products of production.
I started using the backing sheets like an underpainting, applying a tape we used in production over these stains to give them depth and a thick, almost opaque, amber color. Soon thereafter, the tape became the primary focus. I could lay down tape, layer upon layer, apply pressure and repeat the process, building up a thick, waxy, amber field. I was creating art that looked like painting without actually painting. More importantly, I was intrigued by how much variation could be found within one unified surface. When I was formally enrolled in art school, this was the imagery I attempted to recreate with paint — it was dark, indifferent and physical, and it looked severe and spontaneous. Finally, the canvas seemed so much more vital to presenting it as art.
CA: It’s interesting how the imagery and surfaces in your paintings seem to have these definite sources. With this earlier work you’ve just described, there is a process of laying things down and working at a surface, and while your current work is quite different, there is also a great attention to surface and process. It’s always interesting to hear about what an artist has in mind, even distantly, when thinking about his or her work. You mentioned the landscape, and I'm wondering if there are references to other media or fields of study that are important to your work. For some this might be literature, film, architecture, music, scientific facts or data, and these might be influences that are visual, philosophic, sociological, and so on.
SK: I like to think that my paintings are somewhat informed by Modernist architecture. The 2004 panels on view on Minus Space with the elliptical forms actually came about after looking at Louis Kahn. I see these elliptical forms as drawings — plan views for idealized structures.
Modernist architects have done some amazing things, and when it’s really good, the thinking comes through visually. There's logic with architects like Alvaro Siza or Kahn that is tied directly to their relationship with materials — simplicity derived from using steel or wood, for instance, on steel’s and wood’s terms. The really good architects, historically, have had a close relationship with the materials and have had the ability to assert their own identity into the process, so that while the uniqueness of the materials helped shape the project, the project visually shows the architect's ideals. Siza's use of brick brought us unique forms that were realized by using brick slightly out of context. In looking at some of these structures, it all makes complete sense rather quickly.
CA: Can you describe some of the ideas you’re trying to realize in the work, and how you think you’re successful at making that happen? Perhaps you can talk about a specific work that you feel integrates the conceptual and visual aspects of your work.
SK: Finding ways of letting the materials carry an idea is something I'm always trying to track down and will probably always be moving towards; you could refer to it as transcendence of the everyday through visual experience. I like to think that reductive work has a poetic undercurrent that supports reductive painting's more literal and theoretical understanding.
The piece Settlement Series, Corsair (24 x 48 inches) has connotations that are pretty obvious — Corsair refers to the aircraft. This work is an idealization, and considers the pre-high modern images of some aircraft in current high-Modernist light. I think it's important to understand that this painting isn't a duplication of actual wing markings, but the essence of them through color and structure. The markings on the original aircraft were bands of white-black-white-black-white amidst the blue of the wing.
The materials used in the painting are hand-polished wood and specific hues of extremely flat gray-blue acrylic and tempera paint, which is brushed, rolled, and sanded with care and precision. I was careful to duplicate the original blue of the Corsair's body on the painting with mixtures of Cerulean Blue, Medium Gray Light, and Lamp Black; one band tended towards black and the other band is the actual blue of the Corsair. The piece is elongated, horizontal, and object-like to suggest a general sense of the ideal wing, yet it is the emblematic quality of the painted bands that is important for the painting to carry a reference to the actual Corsair. With the painted surface hard and matte, like paint on metal, there is a transition from non-concrete idea to meaning.
In the work Corsair, a visible reference to a specific, almost mythical aircraft is established in the context of contemporary art as motif, and the painting becomes a field where a current interest in blue finds a childhood fascination with a specific visual memory and plants it solely in an art context. The reference to a Corsair becomes less important than how the work reinterprets Corsair as the emphasis for making painting that engages in a dialogue with painting.
CA: Painters, particularly abstract painters, often work to make paintings that are both an image and an object, and work at integrating those two aspects. Each aspect requires its own considerations, and making the painting a whole entity requires additional considerations. Are you working towards a painting that the viewer can see holistically? And in doing this are you trying to let the viewer follow your decision making process, as well as be aware of whatever intentions or impulses you may be operating with? Is there an ideal that you hope to lead the viewer towards?
SK: I have a history of making work that is mute and intends to transcend expressive activity — what artist Daniel Feingold refers to as a "sound free ambiance devoid of personal expression." Holistic is a good term. Recognizing the painting pre-consciously, or feeling it in the gut, is one of the goals. Like most painting, the information is all there to be retrieved or uncovered, yet what is brought to the activity of viewing that positions the viewer centrally within the experience of the work is most important. I think if I were to move the viewer towards an understanding of the really precarious state that the idea of balance suggests, I would be adding value to art and painting in general.
CA: This notion of the viewer’s experience of your paintings as leading to an “understanding of the precarious state that the idea of balance suggests” really appeals to me. It’s something that one would think would be present in all art, but mostly in the background. It sounds like you want that to be one of the primary experiences of your work. Can you say a little more about that idea?
SK: I have always tried to establish an overall sense of balance, or rather equilibrium, so that it becomes the signature of oppositions that resonate in a kind of dance. Equilibrium reflects a universality or wholeness that is a dynamic state. You might say that I explore in painting what may exist in essence through geometric forms which are purely abstract and build (visually) into highly structured compositions. What is important is that space is not static, but a visually dynamic push-and-pull.
CA: It appears from studio photos that you work on paintings laid flat on the table, and my studio visit seemed to confirm that, too. Do you always work flat, or do you also work on paintings hanging on the wall?
SK: Rarely do I work on the wall. The surface I am after is blatantly flat with little imperfection. The paint I use is a water-thin mixture of acrylic and tempera with acrylic binders similar to extremely thin house paint, which dries with the same characteristics. The paint is put on in many coats and has a tendency to run, sometimes showing light-traces where the paint might dry more unevenly in areas that accumulate more paint. Having the work face up allows me to look at it as raking light falls down and across it. This is important with the darker colors, where what is required is a dense sheet or film. When light falls across the surface evenly, I know it's close to being finished.
CA: What is the “fox fur” reference that you are using in many of the recent titles? My guess is that it has something to do with color. It seems that all the paintings with "fox fur" in the title have a gray. There is, of course, the silvery gray of fox, and these grays look rather lustrous. How are you using that term?
SK: The term "fox fur" ultimately describes a range of grays that I started using in early 2004. When I did the series Fox Fur and Teal, I was rediscovering that all forms of gray are really complex hints of muted color, and I was looking for a title for the series that described the overall variations of gray within the range being used.
In the first series, however, entitled Fox Fur, I was pulling paint over the surface with a large knife, leaving accumulated skins of translucent paint. These skins or films always covered a dark blue or black ground and the surface became cloud-like in appearance. The term "fox fur" became descriptive of a process. It certainly referred to a subtle range of color, but also alluded to the nebulous quality of the final surface, i.e., the Fox Fur Nebula. The interest in the silvery grays stuck and I started using this focus as the basis for developing new work that considered color in a more specific manner. The "fox fur" reference finally became a reference to, or rather a description of, a quality of color, a non-descript silvery gray that ranges from yellow to magenta and includes any color absorbed by it.
CA: It can be pretty bold to say, as you do in your MINUS SPACE statement, "The work is not about anything, but the thought of remnants is important...," because you're asking the viewer to give up on expecting to be handed a readily received, digestible package of meaning. Instead the viewer enters into a pre-verbal, visual, time-based experience, which requires an investment in the process of looking, during which the painted object “unfolds.” In this dynamic I think the artist gives something to the viewer, but also requires that the viewer give to the work too. The viewer's giving is their engagement in the process of active, sensitive looking. Without that the image/object’s unfolding doesn't happen. Do you see this — the engagement, the unfolding through looking, the time it takes to do all of this — as part of the subject matter and meaning of your work?
SK: I don't like letting the viewer off the hook easily. I like to think I demand of the viewer as much as they demand of the so-called artwork. I don't think the viewer is transparent to painting, especially with reductive abstraction. There is no subject-object relationship, unless of course you immediately hand them all the answers right up front, so asking the viewer to go to the pre-verbal and give up on a readily digestible package of meaning seems appropriate for where I want my painting to go.
I say my work is not about anything because it sits in that literalist realm where it unfolds continuously with time. Some painting is visually ever-renewing; each time you come back to it there is some variable that wasn't noticed or that becomes apparent over time. Painting that is more literal is wholly manifest at any moment and never changes; it keeps unfolding continuously with time rather than over it. The work confronts the viewer and meaning depends partially on what the viewer brings to it and what the work offers. As a structure outside of consciousness that consciousness refers to, abstraction becomes a field that provides an extension into an idealized sphere of meaning. I think this has to happen pre-verbally before meaning is given.
CA: It seems to me that this structure would first engage the viewer in your experience, as a model, a thing outside themselves, and then as an experience of their own. Do you agree with that?
SK: I do. There are qualities in some art forms that are more, to some degree, objectifiable. Art can be representational and meaning can be developed more immediately. With non-objective or more literal art, the model is more perceptual and doesn't carry as well-developed or agreed-upon sets of meaning that a painting such as the The Last Supper or even a stop sign carries. With non-objective art we almost have to weigh the whole object and perceptually gauge its presence. We have to come to terms with it individually as a thing.
CA: The imagery and ideas you use have definite sources. Earlier you referred to the importance of Kelly and Serra in your comprehension of “critical art that pushed the relationships of form and space and used those relationships to engage the viewer directly.” I think this statement could apply to your work, too. I wonder if you could unpack this a bit, in particular, what this might mean for your art.
SK: Every once in a while, a painter or a sculptor needs to come along and really try to dismantle the art form. Kelly uses the formal, visual elements that define painting's flatness to make objects. Serra takes our understanding of an object and turns it back on us, redefining it by challenging human perception. In both artists I saw work that was highly conceptual because the idea became visible in the object during the viewing of it. I see art with heavy formal elements becoming a more open-ended system when the space of the viewer is enlisted.
To answer the question, in painting I look for visual elements that are speculative, that challenge the art form and remain unique in voice. The space of painting is a fairly tricky space to navigate; it's flat, but also contains connotations and narrations that are other than flat. Painting’s space is illusionistic. These concerns have to be orchestrated in a way that is visually unique, makes sense conceptually, and moves the art form ahead intellectually.
CA: We have talked elsewhere about the idea of a central metaphor to an artist's work. I brought up examples discussed in an interview in a catalogue for painter George Lawson; Lawson mentions painter Patsy Krebs’ idea of a central metaphor regarding one’s work and discusses his own central metaphor. For example, Krebs had referred to a reproduction of a Siennese Annunciation in her studio and identified the concept of transmission and inspiration as central metaphors for her work. In Lawson's case, as I understand it, a reproduction of one of the sarcophagus frescoes from the Diver's Tomb in Paestum is an image that he identifies with and connects his work to in terms of the importance of diving deeply, of taking a leap and plunging into the middle of an action, place, or emotion. Can you identify a central metaphor that is operating in your work? You've already mentioned the importance of Modernist architecture and also the idea of flight related to the Corsair airplane.
SK: Flight is beauty in tension — all that force, speed and grace. The reference to the Corsair worked well for that particular painting; it allowed me to locate idea in a realm separate from expression so I could remove myself somewhat and stand outside or adjacent to the work and visually focus on the painting.
I tend to be pretty methodical in my approach to looking at work-in-progress, and when I'm in the studio, I mostly contemplate the work’s visual logic. All the visual elements (surface, form, and color) have to balance, yet have a slightly-off quality, a weight. I’ll refer to it as a strange sense of familiarity. The Japanese refer to it in their traditional pottery as a balance of perfect imperfection, which comes from nature. The idea signifies for me a balance or beauty that has tension.
When I paint I tape off and paint rather quickly. The works are a lot less planned than they look. The slightly-off quality I refer to is a subtlety, and recognizing it on the panel before it’s taped-off is like seeing something as a flash that goes off when, for a brief moment, the mind is left with an imprint of structure. I really have to trust my decisions, because often times the kind of tension I’m after is poised on failure — failure of not being taken far enough, or taken too far.
CA: I think I see a number of ideas in operation in your work: the separation of idea and expression; the precarious nature of balance; and the moment of recognition, or understanding, as a flash. You work to achieve this by creating or finding tensions in a work that catches the viewer by surprise, sparking a moment of recognition or memory.
SK: I’m often surprised myself. Looking for minor visual elements, such as emerging color relationships or the relationships of form that need to be explored and made concrete, sits at the heart of what I do. What really inspires me is nature and its systems, the motion of which always tends towards maximum efficiency. It is nature’s systems that first got me interested in thinking about balance and how tenuous and resilient natural systems are, always poised between decay and regeneration. There is a lot of movement there that when experienced on a human scale looks static, but it’s constantly aligning and realigning itself so that it stays poised and efficient.
CA: There are a couple more ideas, I think. One is in the idea you mentioned related to pottery— is your painting a kind of following your materials and their properties and behaviors, of accepting what they can do, just as a ceramicist might have to do with clay and glazes? And secondly, you said you are looking for subtle tensions and beauty related to “perfect imperfection”— are you trying to create those tensions, or are you trying to find those tensions? Where does that tension reside? Is it mostly in the surface of the painting, in the drawing and form, or are there other aspects to the entire painted image and object that are contributing to these tensions?
SK: I definitely prefer to let the materials be themselves and follow them. The materials set the rules. Imperfections in the materials often set the tone for what happens visually with the entire painting. I first started using wood as a support for functional reasons — I tend to press hard, and it doesn’t warp as canvas can. Wood became an aesthetic choice because it’s a finished surface that reacts dramatically with nearly any surface next to it. The tonality of wood changes with different colors and can float or recede much as a color does depending on what color or texture is adjacent to it. I also prefer panels with a good deal of surface tension, where the grain shows stress or character.
An entire image or object in balance with its imperfections is worked to that level of completion and is usually a quality that is subtle and realized only when it’s finished. There is a level of spontaneity related to the painting process in finding it. Usually there is something (a form, a surface, or a color) that might weigh just a bit more than another area relative to it, or might impact the painting as a whole without being so obvious that it dominates the entire painting. This is how I ultimately see tension having the greatest strength. I like to work these areas of tension into relationships so they are controlled as an entire painting that functions as a system.
CA: Any recent developments in your work? What’s ahead?
SK: Sometimes we overlook things that after the fact seem painfully obvious. During our studio visit, you pointed out that my wood surfaces functioned like drawing by comparing them with the earlier pulled wax surfaces. I owe you for that one — it’s become a kind of echo with implications on how I might consider the surface as more active. “Flip” is a new piece on MINUS SPACE that reflects this. I am also starting a series of vertical wall mounted sculpture that involve reflective color and reflective light; they follow nicely off the paintings, but seem strangely lighter.
CA: I’m curious to know what place you think art, and in particular your art, has in the world? I’m asking that kind of eternal question about the meaning of art and what it’s good for.
SK: Someone once made a joke in one of my studio critiques at Pratt that started up a good conversation. They were considering the way of the dinosaur and trying to determine what kind I was. My instructor (bless her) told them, "the kind that wants to bring people to their knees" — that would be the Abstract Expressionist inside me. All joking aside, the kind of Modernism that was emerging after Abstract Expressionism, only gets to flourish sporadically. High Modernism keeps appearing and reappearing and is continually taking on new meaning and escalating Modernism as an art form that is critical of itself. That is the key to keeping Modernist art from intellectually going the way of the dinosaur. Because Modernism reserves some of the critical dialogue for the artists, I hope that my work helps push that dialogue along.
To answer the last part of the question honestly, I get kind of itchy if I go too long without moving paint around — again, the inner Abstract Expressionist talking. Painting allows me to navigate the world in a way that brings visual structure to its nuances, reshape it, tag it, preserve it, and color it. While I feel I’m continually arriving at something, I’m also searching for something and painting allows me to work that out visually. I also get a great deal of pleasure from living with painting.
Top Ten, or so
A couple of weeks ago, when talking with George Lawson about my August break from making and posting HTML drawings here, he suggested that I choose ten drawings as an overview of the past three years or so to kick off a return to drawing on September 1. I thought that was a good idea, and he wondered if I could really only narrow a selection down to a top ten. Sure I thought, I can do that. No problem.
Well, it has been a problem. And I don't mean that the problem is that there is too much wonderfulness from which to choose. I'm feeling the opposite- as I look back I'm not seeing as many successful drawings as I thought I'd find.
First, I decided to only choose from drawings posted on this weblog, Look,See, and not bother going back through the old weblog, A Place to Work, Nothing Fancy, just to lessen my work load. Had I tried to pull from the two years or whatever drawings there it would've been too much to take on.
As I looked through drawings month by month back to October 2003 I began to feel a little depressed, a little unhappy, a little impatient, because I found there were very few drawings that felt alive to me, that overcame the awkwardness of the locked-in, hard-edged grid, the even, monotonous brilliance of hexadecimal color and the monitor, and the complete absence of the hand. I have felt this before, and then fought my way through that feeling by doing more drawings and finding new little twists or approaches to a subject. Maybe that will happen again in the future. I have really mixed feelings about this, and I'm not sure where I stand right now. Obviously, I didn't figure anything out during August. And certainly, this confession is not a smooth career move, as if that was ever in question, anyway. But that's the nature of the weblog, and that's been the nature of this project for me, too.
I realized there were two criteria I used for my selection- did it work as a standalone drawing, and did it lead somewhere? In particular, has the drawing been useful for me in work outside the HTML medium? There are aspects of these drawings I've chosen that I'm using in paintings and drawings. I'm glad for that.
Currently I have a list of about thirty drawings. I can't reduce it to ten. And there were days when I made two drawings, so in those few cases when I picked a day I included both drawings. There is one incidence of four drawings on one day. I also cheated a bit and pulled two drawings from a series and counted them as one.
Over the next few days I'll post these drawings. But just for today I'm only going to post one drawing which is now close to two years old and which I think is my absolute favorite.
Tuolumne, November 17, 2003, HTML, 400 x 380 pixels