Art & Perception

Title: Odi Profanum Vulgus

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 4 feet high X 3 feet wide

The technique used here involved the initial manipulation of a digital photographic image described in some detail here. After I achieved the desired, I proceeded to work on the canvas using oils (mostly primary colors) poured onto the brush directly from the tube (using the digitally transformed image as a guide). Very little mixing. Any mixing whatsoever was on the canvas directly. Finished the background by using a drip of cadmium red deep with linseed to improve flowing.  

The image used was that of George Walker Bush.

Our everyday lives are bombarded by images and in a majority of cases what we see is not really the end of the story, it is what we perceive of the seen object that really tells us the story. People who suffer from a form of visual agnosia (called propagnosia – a condition associated with deficits in the right temporal lobe damage manifesting an inability to consciously recognize faces) suffer a remarkable problem in not being able to cognitively distil the details that they ‘see’ in every day life and hence perceive even the most mundane items to be things completely different. Famous among this is the case of Dr. P from Oliver Sachs’s book “The Man who mistook his wife for a Hat and other clinical tales” who actually mistook his wife for a hat and proceeded to wear ‘her’ and even mistook the author of the book for a grandfather clock. The man clearly perceived the world to be something completely different from what the rest of us saw and experienced as reality. Cases of perception being different from reality are also seen in religious symbols. I remember being in India at the time when stone idols of a Hindu god was purportedly drinking milk offered by devotees. I also remember reading the news where enterprising people saw images of their holy representatives on grilled cheese sandwiches. I also know that the same grilled cheese sandwich has been bought on e-bay for thousands of dollars. In fact Wikipedia has an interesting collection of such religious simulacra here. Reading reports of grilled cheese sandwiches and the like prompted me to create the following painting as a commentary on this phenomenon. 

“Mugshots on grilled cheese sandwiches – new trends in religiosity” : Oil on canvas (3ft X 4ft)

How often do you use symbolism in your art? How do you manifest your art with a deeper agenda than what is outwardly seen and how often do people actually understand the symbology employed? How often do you have to explain your symbols with a descriptive title rather than the art ‘speak for itself’’? 

I have often found it difficult to frame a message by just painting a face. A lot of people ask me ‘OK, who is this – rather than – what are you trying to say by painting this face..’. Sometimes the title tends to reinforce the painting but few today tend to dwell on titles.

I got thinking about this more a couple of days back as I was reading a review in the New York Times about an exhibition “Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution, 1760-1830” (underway at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, England). The portraits at the show tended to focus on the ‘message’ rather than the medium, movement or technique (as opposed to the majority of shows today which tend to focus on one or more of the latter). The article also made a reference to the fact that over time, the message tends to fade away while the techniques and talent employed in creating the work live on. While it is commendable that technique and talent stand the test of time (and should), exhibitions like these are relevant in showcasing the effects of social situations on paintings and how painters were influenced symbioticallyby the social milieu ultimately chronicling the society they lived in.

From the article in the NYT (I somehow got to it, but it might ask for a subscription):

“Yet this exhibition’s purpose is radically different: it is to dwell on the message, not the medium. Rather than celebrating the artists as such, it presents them as witnesses to the social and political convulsions of their times. It shows them recording a crucial moment of history as it unfolded.”

What does this painting tell you?

I am interested in your response before you look for my interpretation here.

I was recently reading a book by neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran where he argues that Chola bronzes from ancient India were mocked at by the Victorian Englishmen as artistically primitive and unrealistic. They were unrealistic in the sense that the waist was too narrow, hips too wide and their breasts too large. They in fact decided that art like this was not art at all and labeled it primitive art. Professor Ramachandran goes on to say that some of the Victorians labeled the art thus based on prevailing standards of Western art (some of which was rooted in realism and stemmed from classical Greek and Renaissance art).

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In my guest post a couple of weeks back I was asked to detail some of the techniques that I used to develop some of my paintings and I thought this might be a good topic for discussion.

I typically use the human face as a subject to support statements on issues that I feel strongly (social mode) or I use it to project characteristics like ‘beauty’ (descriptive mode).

Left : Bollywood Broodings; Oil on Canvas : 3 feet wide X 4 feet high
Right : Long neck and adornments; Oil on Canvas : 3 feet wide X 4 feet high

I use the following steps to create my paintings.

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I ran into Art & Perception quite by accident – when I was doing one of those interminable searches that we are accustomed to doing on the internet for all things ‘art’, I remember skimming through some of the contents and I slowly found myself thinking that this was a bit different from other artist-group-hangouts that I had seen. Most would either fall into a category where a bunch of art students would get together to discuss class projects or the others were those that really did not stimulate thinking or original flow of ideas. I knew that I had found a group with tendencies to originality in Art and Perception and decided to keep up with the posts and little by little started commenting on the posts. I was very surprised and happy when Karl wrote to me the other day and asked if I would like to become a contributor to this site and asked me to write a guest post. I mulled for a coupe of days on how best I present myself and thought that the best way to get this going was to talk a bit about myself and a bit about questions that have been plaguing me with respect to art. This way it will serve both as an introduction and as a post that will serve to fuel further discussion (which is the objective of this group – right?)

First and foremost, I am not really one of those ‘trained’ artists. I have a background in Mechanical Engineering and have been working for the last fourteen years (a good 4 years at the Indian Space Agency and most recently about 8 years on Wall Street). I spent about two years in between getting a Masters in Mechanics. Even though I did not get a chance to express myself as much as I do now, I had a lurking genie in me that always wanted to experiment. I experimented with poetry, writing, drawing, cooking and even marathon running. I found out that I was fairly good at some and used to suck at some of the others. I even remember resigning from my job with the Indian Space Agency and devoting myself to the ‘arts’ but could not really manage the monthly bread effectively. In fact at one point I even decided that I will throw it all away, join med school, become a doctor and go away and work for doctors without borders.

Sensible advice prevailed (from my family – primarily my wife)… The one avocation that stayed consistently with me through the years was my love for painting. This was pure joy as in the kind that you experience when you are with your son or daughter and do things sincerely even if you do not expect anything in return because your heart tells you to just do it. It seems right from the point of view of virtue, truth and beauty.So much for the high road and myself, but I think that it is precisely these qualities that seem to be divorced from the current art establishment. Discussion setups like Art and Perception seem like a good mature place to exchange a round of ‘straight from the heart’ delivery that seem to be missing from today’s politically correct world.

That said, the issues that seem to be nagging me are as follows:

1. Why are art schools in the United States so devoted to churning out people (read artists and I have a vision of the video from Wall (Pink Floyd) that has children rolling off the meat grinder) that are focused towards how best they present their work at major galleries and how best to please and amuse collectors and curators when schools should really be looking to foster the creativity of the individual involved? Why are we trying to get sensibilities that are more at home in an MBA program into art schools?
2. It looks like money (read hedge fund managers) is the new art critic. Are all of us collectively turning stupid in the sense that we sometimes (blindly) follow/collect worthless styles/pieces of art because that is where the money is headed? Why do we display a pack rat mentality when it comes to appraising the value of art and an artist by extension?
3. Why is banal art on the rise? Why do we see instances where artists (and some fairly famous ones) give opaque descriptions that seem to be craftily tuned towards appeasing the ears and the sensitivities of the art establishment and try and explain that the significance behind a couple of squiggles on canvas is life in all its forms when it really looks a muddy footed poodle accidentally walked across it?
4. Do you think that a movement can grow from the grassroots in the United States that restores art to what it really should be – ‘art for arts sake’ or is this too lofty a goal to think about especially in this industrially advanced age where today’s fads in one part of the world may already be obsolete yesterday in another part?

Here was a forum where I could ask questions like this and people would take some of these issues seriously or give it the attention that it merits – but nevertheless answer from their hearts.I also think that this might be a suitable forum where I can get to show some of my artworks to an audience that I seem to like and respect. So here goes. I am including four paintings that I have done over the last year in this post and I will continue to post as and when I feel the issues burn and well inside of me or when I turn out newer works. None of these paintings are for sale and I do it primarily because it brings me peace. My wife and my two year old son also enjoys some of my paintings though not necessarily my opinions…