At the basis of my work is a commitment to surrendering to the automatic process, and therein all the marks I make are completely spontaneous. This is a decision, and one which puts limits on my work that I work within. As with all works of art, limits are necessary opportunities for discovery. This is well known, but perhaps in the case of my work the limits are not so obvious. And as such many will inaccurately assume a more common process of artistic formulation to what I do.
What spontaneity means formally is that I make my composition not based on placement on the picture plane, but on the depth of the plane, going into the surface. When marking I do not consider where the next mark will go but surrender to the movement that will come. This was a very challenging thing to master because it means loss of control over the image. It also means a loss of the dialog of decision stroke per stoke in cultivating a picture, an act which I have always found very engrossing. The surrender is provocative in itself, and why do it, but so very different than the continual consideration of placement in the more common practice. And still it is something that requires me to return my attention to consistently.
I fortunately discovered a certain pictorial depth that my images create. I have researched this on black on white images, although I first noticed the extreme degree of it on colored work. I keep this compositional awareness in my layering of paint, to create depth and synergy between layers as desired. I have even discovered that the filing in of a top layer can reveal the quality of a lower layer that was previously obscured by the more sparse top layer.
I need to note that my Emerging Imagery works have definite compositional placement on the picture plane. But these are done with masking and reliefs, the marking process remains the same. I am happy to introduce these pictorial elements in my work, and the return to this process which engrosses me as stated above.
Another aspect of this spontaneous process of working, and which is different than other common practices, is that there is no possibility of imitation. I am not woking to copy another's look or style, regardless that it may look as such. In fact, doing automatic drawing was not an idea I wanted to pursue in the first place. It's revelation in me was just as spontaneous, and extraordinarily provocative. There is no way I could imitate in this as its is a very different process. This also means that making accurate studies for final works is also out. This impossibility of imitation is also a limit, and again imposed due to the commitment to spontaneity.
There are choices I do make in my art: properties of the support, formation of marking tools, properties of the media, and when to stop, and now an introduction of delineated imagery through masks and reliefs. I take these decisions very seriously as they are so few. And in these decisions I can take influence. But because of the spontaneity itself there is no possibility of influence in my marking. The surrender process is very different than a calculating process of imitation. In this way there is no possibility of me following an historical precedent in it. This goes against a very ingrained belief, and one I am not shy about bucking, because to me it has been exposed as the cerebral construct for what it is.
The philosophical implication of this is rather considerable, and I may put forth that so much more is based on an organic structure that is assumed to be of a cultural lineage. This of course is related to the "nature vs. nurture" dilemma. But what is intriguing is the distinct possibility of realizing in a profound way the inaccuracy of an assumption, one that may even be unknown as such. That the experiential revelation of an organic process, by contrast, can show the poverty of a conceptual construct.
Posts
