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Published: 2008-02-16 14:04:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 4362; Favourites: 180; Downloads: 87
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Description
Event 376 "Waking Up"(study for a larger piece)
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10" x 10"
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Alabaster Dust, Oil, Acrylic, Emulsion, Wax and Pigment on Canvas.
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Comments: 104
Thank you very much.
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Well, thank you very much for the compliment!
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Phenomenal! I'm very intrigued by your technique.
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Those rounded dark corners at the top are what made me associate the image with rising from the tomb -- first Lazarus, then Christ. (The figure is lying with his head to the left.)
The colors suggest cold (thus all the wintry associations above), but the line on which the figure lies is warm. It is also a line that creates a reflection, which looks like it is rippling in water (thus a thaw). There is a guardian at the figure's head and it is roaring -- you can see the soundwaves shooting out to the left, all the way to the darkness at the far left, in which you can see the night stars. That guardian is like a snow lion (a tomb/temple guardian) or an angel.
On the figure's lower abdomen is the letter GAMMA, which is the first letter in GNOSIS. (The Gamma Beta Phi fraternity says: "Gamma is the initial letter of the Greek word meaning Education.") Awakening. But more interesting is the fact that in electrical engineering, Gamma represents the "reflection coefficient" and in lower case, in physics, it represents the PHOTON (which is the particle nature of light). There is a lower case Gamma on the figure's chest, upside down, pointing up at the ceiling of the "tomb." It appears to be shooting out of the figure's SOLAR plexus chakra.
I've taken a rather circuitous left-brain (naming-with-words) approach to interpreting this piece, but you should know that the FEELING I got, almost instantly, was one of coldness (snow-like, tomb-like) that oddly led to light (enLIGHTenment/waking up). It was in "watching" myself have the response that I could point at various elements in the piece to give it explanatory meaning (at least for myself). I'm glad you bother to name your pieces (even if those names are cryptic) -- Rothko was wrong-headed in his insistence on keeping his later works untitled so they they could just be the thing itself. What he didn't realize was that the nudge is helpful if it isn't forced. He wouldn't have despaired quite so much if he admitted that when the viewer is face-to-face with the artwork s/he is looking, eventually, at everything in the nothing.
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How can I thank you for this incredible description. It is such a privilege when people take the time to write such a detailed reaction to my work. Extremely interesting, I am very grateful that you took the time to write your thoughts. Thank you very much!
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The privilege is mine -- I've been learning to "see" more fully as a part of my Taoist photography project. It's basically a mindfulness practice of watching my mind as I observe artwork and photos. Sometimes the things that seem most unremarkable create the deepest resonances to watch in the mind, and I think your paintings are very rich with those layers under their "simple" surfaces.
When I taught at the Bard College MFA program, one of the things that really struck me (having been a PoMo skeptic) was that there was no faking minimalist/nonrepresentational art. The poor artists were like poets who wrote PoMo verse because they actually didn't have a handle on classical forms (or grammar and punctuation, for that matter) while the good artists had disposed of conventions because they had grown beyond them. The good nonrepresentational artists, I learned, were not representing objects (or consensus-based conventions of reality) but they WERE representing thoughts, emotions, and (un)CONSCIOUSNESS in a way one might say was more "direct." What I find so remarkable about your work is that it is so "natural" (hard to express this, but perhaps in the way nature turns order into a form of chaos as part of the process of entropy). Yet your work is willfully like this, which makes it negentropic (and the dynamic interplay of these processes is where the meaning seems to arise). There are only a few other artists I've found who seem to do this successfully.
Anyway, it's both a pleasure and a learning experience to look at your work.
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Rarely in my career have I enjoyed so much (or indeed been privileged enough to experience) such insight into my work and 'modern' work and the deeper concerns within it, than reading your words. Thank you so much, once more, for taking the time to express your view, your thoughts and process of looking with me. I cannot express how helpful and uplifting it is for my work to be received in such a way. You have an extremely finely honed sense of what is going on in my work, your way of looking from a Taoist point of view of mindfulness is perfect. Thank you very much indeed for your words, words which make a huge difference in my resolve to continue. Much appreciated!
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Sorry about that left/right confusion at top. The large-head-to-the-left figure is simultaneous with the smaller head-to-the-right figure (with the guardian) I'm talking about above. The placement of the gamma changes, but you should know that there are lots of other things in superposition in the piece and I've only touched on one! (I get LR confused all the time.)
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if one day i make a record, that will definitely be my front cover.
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Well, if you ever do please feel free to use it.
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Thank you once more, I appreciate your interest.
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Are there normally dark corners on the top ? I am not sure, it doesnt seems to belong.
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The work hasn't changed since I first posted it....could you elaborate please, I'm very interested in a more specific description?
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May be the way I look to it ?
I was talking about the dark corners on the top. It seems to me that they may be artefact of reproduction, ( the true piece not having them) or something relatingto some part of the project that is not yet shown. But for some reason, not consistent with the visible piece, as it is actually.
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I see what you mean I think. The original painting did go around in a smooth curve like that, as I used an airbrush technique. I suppose it could be an artefact. This piece doesn't exist now so I can't retake the picture or I might try.
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But I still like it, I really like your style, both very emotionnal and calm...I can be absorbed. As a person I am very wary of pathos ! It does not stir - so it is calm -
but it create feeling, so it is emotionnal. With a respect of distance may be.
I dont like being hit in the guts. I like when it pervades trough the perception to the soul.
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I can't tell you how much I needed to read something like that right now, this evening, at 9p.m. in this place. Your words are poetic to me and for apparently, relatively nothing, I can't thank you enough!
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Everybody have doubts about art, I just say yes, you are able to transmit, even if I cannot define clearly what is transmitted. Have a good day full of work .
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like a great white snowfall
tho,,,in england!@!??
being silly
but it does look like snow,ice
cooooold
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we used to have harsher winters
it snows only two or three days in winter now
i don't like cold, but i miss the snow
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yes...i used to live in london...
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There is a deep sense of self for me in this painting ... the line that divides above and below ... the filmy bits and the firm bits in each sphere speak to me. There is no need to dream when one sees a fine abstract and can journey into the unconscious via its portal.
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Thank you so much!
This is exactly what my goal as a painter is...to allow that self communication.
Thank you for taking the time to write that description, which you put in such poetic terms.
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Your concretions reminds me of Rothko, motherwell and Ernst
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