David’s Self-Portrait with Raven reminded me of this picture of a black bird that I carried in my mind: 
A composite in my mind’s eye (poetically) or (scientically) inferior temporal cortex.
First post by Sunil
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:
- 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?
- 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?
- 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?
- 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…
Four views of bare limbs
I always find it interesting to see how different artists treat the same subject. Browsing the web, I’ve come across a number of images from several photographers that are close to some of mine in subject matter. Not only that, but they appear close in spirit as well. That evokes two reactions in me: disappointment that I’m not the first and only one to see the world in this unique and compelling way, and pleasure in finding others who seem to see the world in this unique and compelling way.
These are photographers I can learn from. Not only because I enjoy and respect their larger bodies of work, but because by comparing similar images I think I can learn more about my own work. I want to understand what distinguishes my own vision or style, which is not something I derive from principles, but have to discover by making images and looking at them.
Links for Artists
How to Store Oil Paints
How to Care for Brushes
Frames and Framing
Painting from Life vs. from Photos
How to Blog
Incongruity
One of my most powerful and influential muses both in my writing and photography is incongruity. I believe this is the case for two reasons. First, growing up gay in mid 20th Century America means you daily face living in a state of perpetual incongruousness. Almost every thought you have is incongruous with your surroundings and the apparent thoughts of most everyone around you. Your self-confidence, self-respect and development as a human being depends on embracing and owning your state of incongruity. As a child and especially as a closeted teenager and college student I was often called a non-conformist and an iconoclast. That was unfair to true non-conformists and iconoclasts because I did not choose to be so whereas they do. What appeared to be non-conformity and iconoclasm was merely the manifestations of my incongruous condition.
The second reason for my creative relationship with incongruity is Manhattan, my life-long environment. Environmentally, my home town provided a visual and cultural stew that celebrated and exploded with incongruity. As a child and closeted young man, I could swim in the waters of Manhattan with complete confidence and comfort. Who would notice my quirky little self in this ocean of intensely complex cultural, economic, political, racial and ethnic diversity and this visual cacophony and feast of discordant shapes, colors and textures?
So incongruity became my home and my muse.
I believe that New York is as important to the art world as it is because this city”s uniquely incongruous nature drives an unequaled atmosphere of creative energy and frenetic industry. I was recently asked why I “limit” my camera to New York. In fact, I almost never travel with my camera. My inventory of Manhattan photography is vast. And having traveled extensively throughout more than two dozen countries and countless cities and towns, I have but a few hundred old transparencies buried in a drawer somewhere.
The reason is that my muse is a very demanding mistress. Paris is a city of harmony and balance. London delivers an abundance of quaint, stately and a touch of the eccentric. Tokyo is an avalanche of uniformity and elegance. Bangkok is an ocean of golden spires. Amsterdam’s incongruity lies in the sexual antics hidden behind sparkling clean windows and compulsively neat little houses. But if I photographed these places I would feel like an adulterer.
For many reasons: Chance, the forces of chaos, competing cultural perspectives, subconscious manifestations of the city’s demographics–Manhattan’s is the queen of incongruity. My camera’s appetite for it seems never to be satisfied by the cornucopia of inharmonious diversity of architecture, styles and design. New York never disappoints in that regard. In most any direction you look in most parts of town, you will find bizarre, often inappropriate and jarring juxtapositions of lifestyles and perspectives that should make for one big jumble of chaos but instead it is in that brazen incongruity that the city finds an amazing visual harmony.
Tourists are often jarred by this as they discover that a wrong turn on a city block can transport you into an entirely different world after merely walking a few feet. Other than the city’s famous grid pattern, little else has been done in concert thanks to the egos and individuality of very wealthy men and the American habit of borrowing architectural styles and ornamental designs and decorative effects from several thousand years of human history which is no where more apparent than in this city.
On one city block you may catch glimpses of ancient Babylonia, Classical Greece, Medieval Europe, Art Nouveau Vienna, and Renaissance France. Some of these will be bizarrely newish, some aged through recent neglect and other parts deliberately made to look weathered over hundreds or even thousands of years. In fact, one of the most charming characteristics of this great lady with a passion for phallic symbols is that it is often impossible to differentiate between neglect and artful and deliberate antiquing.
I will be quite content to spend the rest of my life exploring this town’s details. I consider myself to be extremely lucky to have found a model who remains timeless, always changing and forever surprising. My work is completely a product of my environment. Incongruity. Except Manhattan is also the glue that holds it together, and I mean “it” in every sense of the word.
