Art & Perception

Now for something completely different from my usual inanimate landscapes. Probably almost every photographer in Montana has done horses at some point. They were actually a major subject of my first photos when I started up with digital photography, and starred in my first self-assigned project (not on the web site; I guess it’s still in progress). But they were eventually neglected as I mostly pursued my long-term interest in landscape and abstraction. Then I saw some postcards of the Horse Nudes portfolio of Kathe Lesage and realized what I’d been missing. Last weekend I had a chance to do something about it.

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In my current studio phase I’ve been experimenting with an idea that goes back a while, but was most recently brought to life by a show I saw that included the painter Michael Haykin. I’ve been wanting to find a way to combine images in a way that yields something that is more than the sum of its parts. Probably most artists have considered making a Cubist-like multi-perspective image, but as June found out in her struggle to make Cubist biscuits, it’s not at all easy. I certainly haven’t had much success myself, but this time around I do feel I’ve learned something that will affect future work.

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The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can clarify in paint.

Nothing is less real than realism…details are confusing…it is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.

I’ve just started reading The Vexations of Art by Svetlana Alpers, in which she draws an analogy between the artist’s studio and the scientific laboratory, both arising at a time (17th C.) when there was a “change in emphasis from theory to practice, or from science considered primarily as the formation of natural laws to science as the making of experiments.”

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I read yesterday in the New York Times about a show called “NeoIntegrity” at the Derek Eller Gallery, curated by the painter Keith Mayerson. What caught my eye was the charming manifesto Mayerson created for the show (not included in the article). It touches on many points often discussed here on A&P (but apparently still not settled!). Here’s the manifesto:

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OHIO TOWN – varnish on figured foam – 2005

You, especially if you patrol the aisles of building supply stores, have run across sheets of a light, pink material, used for insulation. Foamula is a common trademark.

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