We Can Now See The Edge

We worked for a long time but finally, there was only one bird left.

This is a painting I finished this winter, 11/23/2012.

It is 12" X 12", acrykuc and collage on canvas.

Tuesday's Testament - The Experimental Ten

A couple years ago, I decided to do a series of paintings with a certain purpose in mind. I had spent a decade or so waiting for the inspiration to paint SOMETHING. Then finally I decided I would see if one could do a painting that meant NOTHING. It wouldn’t be realistic or impressionistic. It couldn’t even be abstract if it gave some sort of impression or feeling, set a tone or mood or even expressed an opinion or idea.

The painting had to be material led. In other words, the paint and form had to suggest itself; the technique had to arrive by necessity to the production. The size and shape of the canvas didn’t matter.

As long as the painting was not OF something, produce some emotional response or suggest some idea or situation, it would meet the goal.

I built stretcher frames, mounted raw canvas studio style, gesso primed about 20 panels of various sizes. (That took a couple weeks.)

I propped them up in rows in a place where I would pass often. The call of the empty canvas was eventually irresistible.

I found right away that once there was a splash of paint on the canvas, there was an urge to follow it with other strokes, other colors. The paint and application suggested its own direction.

I limited the work to the mediums of acrylic colors, water colors, pencil, Conte crayon, charcoal and canvas at first. A bit of collage work came along after I got started.

I set the quota at ten paintings, any size. I did this to keep me from deciding that it could or couldn’t be done after one or two paintings. I had to finish ten.

Most of the resulting work is pretty awful, marginal at best. The best two were complete failures as far as the experiment goes. They evoke emotion and ideas.

Although I worked on two or three, even four at a time this one was actually the first I felt was completed.

It is 20 inches by 20 inches.

Working on more than one at a time helped keep me from focusing on a theme for each piece. When I returned to a canvas after a couple hours of working on others, I was inclined to respond more to the painting and add to it what it suggested rather than let my imagination take the image in any direction.

Which also points out the first problem I encountered.

If it has no message or depiction, how do I know it is finished?

I decided, for one thing, that when a painting reached a point that additional work would begin to give it direction, it was done.

The second one was the victim of a wild experiment. I wanted to combine a computer generated image with a background on canvas. I'll let you imagine how that was actually accomplished.

This one had an easy title so it didn't qualify to be meaningless.

I called it Giraffes Don’t Like Lightning

This one is 12 inches by 12 inches.

A little larger now. This one is 28 inches by 28 inches.
This is the one used in the
video depicting where a painting comes from.

The struggles are clearly evident.

This one is the largest of the ten. It is 26 inches by 36 inches.

Here is where I learned (finally) that you just can't have anything in this experiment that can be a horizon.

I think perhaps that is the first thing the mind looks for is a horizon. It is essential to our basic balance and relationship to our world, and perhaps life itself.

Arguable, of course.

I keep wandering back to this one. It's as if it's not finished. I titled this one

"The Other End"

then I realized that if it suggests a title to me, it is about something. (At least to me.)

This one is 28" by 28"

This one seems to depict layers or strata.

Bottom to top.

It was done with layers in collage producing the pastel colors.

Back to front.

Since it seems to be something, it does not meet the criteria of the experiment.

It is 20 inches by 20 inches.

This one is 20 inches by 20 inches.

Another lesson.

On this one I learned that a completely meaningless painting cannot have any identifiable objects in it. Here we have musical notes, lolly pops and/or the Rockettes.

Here's the horizon again. Using a paint application method that I had not tried before, I became interested in the colors it was producing and forgot about form. When a horizon or two emerged, I knew I had another failure.

This one is 20 inches by 22 inches.

A bit of artwork must make a connection to the observer in order for it to be accepted as art. The observer must "see" or "feel" something recognizable in reality (at least the observer's version of it) in order for the painting to be enjoyed, accepted as worthy.

Disconnect
-28 inches by 28 inches.

I can't make it clearly show in this photograph. There are two whites in this one. The difference shows more at certain angles or lighting.

With this one, again I concluded that if a painting suggests a title to me, then it took on a meaning. This one said "Disconnect" to me. It was no longer meaningless. Completely meaningless work would have to be titled "Untitled number nine" or something similar.

After hanging this for a while, I discovered there are THREE whites. As one stares at it (in disbelief, of course) the optical illusion called "After Image on Empty Shape" or "Color Dove Illusion" takes effect and produces a third white. Or a "Negative Ghost Afterimage."

Discovering this, I decided to add a subtitle to it. It is now: "Disconnect, After Image on an Empty Shape".

This one is a complete failure in the attempt to remain meaningless. It draws too much emotion, thought. I kept it anyway. I kinda like it.

I decided that this painting could be displayed with the dark part at the bottom or the top. I added a name for both. It is as if it were two paintings. Each position evokes a different response.

Hung this way, the title is:
iniquitous insouciance

It is 24 inches by 24 inches.

After more than a decade of "painter's block" this was also an effective way to get it started again.

Okay, so there's eleven. So shoot me.

This one was made from left overs. When finishing with a painting session, I put the unused paint from the palette, bottles, brushes and fingers on an empty stretched canvas with a tinted undercoat.

The effect kept it random and unidentifiable until a horizon began to emerge and a few shakes of a wet brush made a meteor shower.

This one is 28 inches by 28 inches

The obvious conclusion.

So it really can't be done.

To the average observer, if a painting doesn't identify with them, tell them something or fit somewhere in their realm of experience, it just isn't art.
"I wonder if he thinks that's finished!"
"What's that supposed to be?"
"Who's going to clean up that mess?"

The artist can't paint a meaningless painting simply because there is always something that motivates the work. An artist is capturing, depicting, communicating, even preserving.

Of course there are examples where the artist tried to communicate, but nobody got it. The message was lost. But it was there...

So I proved something that we probably already knew. What I learned was a few of the reasons why it can't be done. And I learned a few new things about painting too.

Wordless Wednesday - I know this stuff.

My own Wordless Wednesday

The Profile(more than you really wanted to know)is here.

Lost GalleryThe rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

Still the most popular page on this blog. The Subway Collection

Jackie Gleason

Today in 1916 Jackie Gleason was born. And away we go. I did this painting in 1955.

The Profile (more than you really wanted to know) is here.

Lost Gallery The rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

For more about Double Exposures see this page in Lost Gallery.

Wordless Wednesday - Where a painting comes from.

My Own Wordless Wednesday Well okay, I added some words later. I did ten paintings with the question, "Why does a painting have to BE something?" With some observers, looking at a painting is like trying to find something familiar in shapes of clouds. "Oh look! That part looks like my dog!" So I worked on a series of paintings that would be nothing in particular. Nothing real, nothing surreal, no communication, no emotional message, no mood, no display of technique, no decorator accessory. “That’s just the right size and color for over my couch.” I was determined to just let the bare canvas suggest where to start. Let the marks ask what to do next. Let the color tell what other color is needed. Which style? Which technique? All the while, there should be no effort to BE something. Except what the paint asked. It took about six canvases before one really evolved like that. It is difficult to disassociate with the real world. There was no horizon, no direction. No randomness, no discipline. It was just what the canvas asked for. I suppose someone, sometime, will inevitably see their dog in it somewhere. The mind strives to put everything into the familiar. But at least I don’t, in this case anyway. I see only how I responded to an empty canvas. We talked.

The Profile (more than you really wanted to know) is here.

Lost Gallery The rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

For more about Double Exposures see this page in Lost Gallery.

Is it Francois Schuiten?

This page was originally posted back in May of 2007 and it still gets visits.
So it is getting a re-run today.

It was originally thought to be work from Francois Schuiten, but is it?

Who knows who the artist is?

The mystery print. It is 20x28. There seems to be no signature. It was found in a junk shop in central Oklahoma, neatly and expensively framed. Is there more from this artist/illustrator? Who is it? Is it Francois Schuiten? Looks like his work but can someone confirm it? Have you seen this print in a book? Or have you seen another copy of it anywhere?

Update: One reader on the original page made these observations after some careful study. Here is the comment (in part): i was curious, and checked back on this page every now and then, but aparently noone could identify it, making me think its a very unique drawing ! That would explain why no one could name the artist in such a long time. i found a few minor things which may be of interest, although i dont think the mystery can be uncovered... -below the big right tower, over a window above the stairs, there is a inscription in faint, big old lettering "3T". -there are a lot of "bridge-arches" which may be another hint. -the clay chimneys on the right all look similar. -i believe the drawing is an allegory, where the two sides, right and left, represent northern and southern europe... The reader is right. After the original post in 2007 a copy of the painting was repeated in the sidebar of the blog for more than a year. No takers.

Here is a blow up, slightly enhanced, of that section. There appears to be a "3T" or an "ST" just above the door. Do these new clues tell us anything? What do you think?

The Profile (more than you really wanted to know) is here.

Lost Gallery The rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

For more about Double Exposures see this page in Lost Gallery.