Art & Perception

I had the good fortune to go to a very good group show at the MoMA recently with the provocative title ‘What is painting?’. One among the many works that I ran into was by a lady artist of the 1970’s Lee Lozano. Not having studied at art school, I did not know much about her (well, I did later find out that she really is not a household name) until I came back home and read up a little bit about her. The more I read, the more I was fascinated by how she had managed to integrate art and life into a seamless whole. From reading, I surmised that her desire for painting went beyond the confines of the canvas and she tried through her art/life to incorporate the viewer and her life in a strange union.

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Every time I paint a face, I learn something about the person being painted and something about myself.

A face does not have to be stately or symmetrical, but it needs to speak to me. Oftentimes, I find expressions that I identify with or abhor in these faces. Ultimately, I think it is the expression and implied emotion that carries the painting more than anything else.

Sometimes, the texture of skin may be in synchrony with the emotions depicted while at other times in dissonance. The skin of an old woman’s face that’s wrinkled and leathery with creases might signal decrepitude while at other times the sadness in the eyes and the mouth of a smooth silky skinned prostitute might also signal the same.

This time, I did not want to end this with a question, but wanted to just show this painting that I did a week back. As usual, comments and thoughts most welcome. more… »

I was recently interviewed about my artwork and I found myself grappling with a concept about artwork that was dormant in my mind for a while. 

I have always had a weakness for trying to find meaning in art and I strive to find and sometimes interpret meanings that the artist would not have even remotely thought of… This is a good thing as it is with reflection and thinking that we attain a deeper understanding of the forces that we encounter in today’s world. 

My approach to looking or developing artwork, involves asking the following questions: 

— Does the artwork evoke an emotional response in the onlooker at this point in time? 

— How would a person interacting with the same at least 200 to 300 years from now perceive it and would it still carry at least some portion of its original emotional import? 

This is the litmus that I use to view work and gauge its significance. Now I understand that very few of us can predict what our future generations would have in their minds with respect to aesthetic sensibilities, but putting on this lens is one way I tend to weed out the mountains of artwork that is churned out by thousands of artists all over the world these days. 

I know a lot of you would not subscribe to my old fashioned, outmoded views, but I would very much be interested in learning about criteria that you consciously or unconsciously employ in gauging the significance of artwork that you behold. 

How many times have you finished working on your art thinking that you have completed it and then come back to it later and completely change the piece? And, I don’t mean touching up or toning highlights or anything – just a complete restructuring (and sometimes destroying) of the original artwork. more… »

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… »

Van Gogh did self portraits because he had no money to pay models. Rembrandt used it as a vehicle to improve his artistic skills as well as to study the minute emotional states inflicted by muscular inflections on his face. Women artists of the 1800’s did it because they were not allowed access to live models and social restrictions made it difficult for them to paint publicly. Others like Frida Kahlo examined the different psychological underpinnings behind the ‘self’ using the self portrait as a tool, a vehicle. Gentileschi used the portrait as a mask that tended to hide the viewer from the self that the artist wanted to conceal. There are so many different reasons for creating a self portrait.

It is also instructive (and fun) to read the opinions of Art and Perception contributors to this art form. more… »

Under the catchwords of accessibility and inclusiveness, a lot of artifacts in the art world are losing its original meaning and interpretations thereof. Simply put: We inhabit a culture of simplification and generalization with the hopes that unpretentious agendas would be understood and assimilated by a larger audience. This has been documented extensively in other fields and is now seen to be creeping into the arts as well. Two examples from either sides of the Atlantic would further illustrate my point. more… »