Art & Perception

Bigland

I first stumbled upon Sean Scully in an Artnet article last year, but only a week ago did I go get some books of his work from the library. This post is about the notion of harmony and Scully’s approach to it, but I want to give a bit of context. Scully’s abstract paintings, drawings, and pastels are all based on a simplified vocabulary of stripes or short bars. This mature style developed by the early 80’s. Each painting has a different structure; the interest is partly in the composition, but more in the colors of each element — which I find lush and restrained at the same time — the and masterful way they are joined and coordinated.

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This painting from 1999 is made with oil colors on a chalk ground on a wood panel. There are interesting aspects to this picture that make me want to take another look at it.

I like the mood that the colors and rhythms of the landscape give in contrast to the pale woman.

The rhythms of the grass and the receding landscape, the whites of the clouds, each sets up its own system. The woman in contrast has a simple rhythm of points — her nipples mirror her eyes. She is still and silent, but the landscape seems to reflect the texture of her thoughts and feelings — this is how I see it. The sharp edges and mellow forms are part of this texture.

All the oddness of the painting holds together because of its “internal coherence”, to borrow Arthur‘s expression.

I think that taking a careful look at older work is important because along the way I sometimes loose site of the things I did before, perhaps because I didn’t appreciate them earlier. Have you ever “rediscovered” an older work of your own, finding something in it you never saw before?

Art can take a lot of time to make. What should one occupy one’s mind with during that time? Does an artist need to think about each brush stroke? Or does the creation of art become intuitive?

If art making becomes intuitive rather than thought-based — and to me that sounds appealing — what should become of word-based thought when one is working? Is it better to think about something else, to distract oneself with music, a book on CD?

This is something I’ve been thinking about while painting. What do you think about?

I’m in a maundering mood, trying to pin down the meaning of a tiny revelation I had the other day.

I was doing my 7 AM walk with my digital camera, getting photos of flowers, shrubbery, moss, walls, the usual panoply of residential flora on the pleasant July streets of Portland Oregon. But suddenly I found myself seeing the foliage and supports, stems and stamens, bricks and buds, as Art.

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Reading Karl’s latest post about Ultra Minimal Non-Conceptual art got me thinking a bit about where we are headed as far as art movements go. Here is my view.

Please bear in mind that this post was purely based on my ideas and observations and at most the product of an effort to understand the art world better. Hopefully I have managed to convey some sense, but if not, my sincere apologies.

Since a picture is worth a 1000…, I created a little graph to clarify the thinking a bit further and here goes… more… »

I’ve not posted here for the last month, as I’ve been deep into computer management issues. Creativity has been at a low ebb, as has been anything cogent to say about the process. But I’m on the road now, which always gets me creatively engaged with my surroundings.

We’re visiting friends on Salt Spring Island, which is between the BC mainland and Vancouver Island. The hills and sea coves are spectacular, of course. Walking with friends at Ruckle Provincial Park, I explored the woods and beach with my camera as they conversed. I felt like the off leash dog lingering behind to check out the compelling scents along the trail.

Washed up on the rocky coast, with all the other woodsy flotsam, was a huge stump with its ring of roots, whitened by many seasons in the sun. I’m a sucker for these sorts of things. No matter that this is a well worn rut in photographic explorations–the reason photographers are attracted to eroded rocks and convoluted trees is that they’re interesting natural forms to stare at. I am not above joining the fray, so long as I get to do it in relative solitude.

The more I started poking around this stump, the more I appreciated how this was one of the more complex shapes in a natural object that I had encountered in awhile. By taking pictures of it, sitting in it and looking, and looking, and extracting more shapely photographs, and looking some more, I got to “know” this thing. I crawled in close, and I backed off and saw how it sat in the larger landscape. I began a relationship.

We had about 30 minutes together, this stump and I. Most people, and me in another mood, would have walked by, glanced at the stump, thought, hey, that’s cool looking, and gone on their way. The camera was an excuse to linger and really feel what this spot was like for the duration.

Sunil’s recent post was most provocative. It’s not often that someone seeks comment about his or her self portrait. Turns out that Sunil may have opened a rich vein.

I appreciate the opportunity to witness a participant, not just through the trajectories of post and comment, but as the individual presents his or herself in an image.

In that spirit I would like to throw my mug in the ring.

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