Art & Perception

Succulus by Robert Pepperell

Robert Pepperell, the Head of Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art & Design, is interested in the phenomenon he calls visual indeterminacy: you see the scene before you clearly, but you don’t know what it is. His article Seeing without Objects: Visual Indeterminacy and Art has helped me put together another piece of the puzzle of what is compelling to me about abstraction and what I mean by abstraction in my own work. Pepperell comes at the question through art history, psychology/neuroscience, and his own drawings and paintings. For example, his painting Succulus is very evocative for me of the figures, draped clothing, and sky on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, yet I can’t actually recognize any of that in the picture. As described on his web page:

more… »

Sitting and meditating lately about what is really life about that makes up get up in the morning and carry on as artists…

Is it how much money you got in the bank? The partner of our dreams? That new car you been saving up? The Exhibition you booked for?

Or is it the peace of mind, security and happiness that all this acquirements provide us?

What is really life about?

It’s very easy to confuse values with goals, but they are very different – goals are specific ways in which you might express your values…

Now, think for yourself, what you really value in your life? You might say “my job”, but then ask yourself “What is your job in the service of?” You might answer “Financial security”. Keep asking the same question “What is financial security in the service of?” Keep on asking the question until can’t find an answer and you have found your value.

Values are what life is about, and it it’s all about happiness. Know your values! Happiness is what makes my life worth for, ask yourself!

Everything else my dear collegues, it will before long turn to dust…

We have been discussing the correction of distortions that can arise when photographing paintings, doorways and such. One solution is found in Photoshop where a mode in the cropping tool can be used to square up images taken from oblique angles.

This mode, meant primarily to rectify, can also be used to distort. That which is already head-on can be given an oblique perspective.

This is an example using one of Tree’s houses. Here we see the image as she posted it.

more… »

Keystoning or the distortion of vertical lines was a concern last year when I photographed paintings. On dpreview.com, I learned that to avoid keystoning one should hold the camera on a parallel plane to a painting and then shoot at the longest zoom setting. more… »

I posted sometime back on living the art life and how it would be great to have one’s personality be in tune with art such that the art and person blossom to their fullest…  I was thinking about the art life a lot after reading reports on art done by people of questionable backgrounds (some of whose victims are now demanding that the artworks be rescinded and not be considered works of art). more… »

This is the end product of a demo I posted on another site. The process I used was to do a series of acrylic washes until I thought I knew the person I was looking for in this painting. Then started to build in oil, leaving some of the acrylic visible. I kept from moving away from my original idea by avoiding the urge to make everything perfect. I thought about making the hand smaller or detailing the neck line of his T-Shirt, but it remained just a thought. I had the feeling that I was done and it was time to move on to something new.

Predictability is fine in its place, but it can be overdone. This post is for the halibut. An open thread for anything that comes to mind. Your comments are all.