Predicting my Future.

This is an examination of my creative process. A proposal to myself of what I plan to do this summer.  Noting my initial expectations before a series of paintings begin and the surprises, disappointments and discoveries that ultimately unfold over time. 

This summer (2016) I plan to make a series of paintings on medium and small canvases. I’ll explore washy (acrylic) pigments as a way to capture subtle detail fluidly, avoiding rigidity. The fluidity of the paint will further emphasize the subject matter.  How fluid are the boundaries between our interior and exterior and between our environment and ourselves?

These paintings will continue to explore my fascination with the figure.  First the figure’s internal spirit’s relation to her external embodiment.  Then the figure’s relation to her context or environment. I’m interested in how these duals interact-the conflicts and communions that continually occur.  How the spirit is materially harnessed and how it immaterially escapes.

The individual’s interior is fluid, transitional and invisible and the exterior is fixed. The weight of the exterior cannot keep pace with the boundless interior. And what if the two do not line up? What if the exterior is not a reflection of the interior? How do we come to terms with the gap? Men and women, young and old, we all to greater or lesser degree feel at odds with our exteriors. A common feeling which most likely accelerates as we grow older. This chronic tension is what interests me.

And troubles me.  Why don’t the two line up automatically? Why must we brand, identify and style ourselves? Why do we care to? Is this superficial, petty, exhausting or futile? Doesn’t the interior spirit exude nonetheless?  As we spend time molding and manipulating our exterior to reflect what we think is a more authentic us who are we fooling?  Ourselves or others?

The figures I paint are female. I paint what it feels to inhabit a female form and the gesture corresponds. More than just feel the feeling I want to see the feeling. Just as a writer writes to know what she thinks.  So I paint to know what I feel.  This gives weight and form to a feeling and therefore importance. Painting suits to record and define a moving unnamed mystery in me. A painting is a fixed visual of my internal invisible spirit and more accurately aligns with my idea of authentic self-expression. More than my physical embodiment can.

This summer I will continue these themes of duality. Starting to focus more on the figure (internal/external combined) in relation to her environment and less on the figure’s spirit’s relation to her physical identity.  The figure will not dominate but be of equal importance to her surroundings.  How fluid will the figures be in their context? How rigid, awkward? As usual the results seen in my painting will most likely be the outcome of my personal developments in life. How free can I be? How much control and protection is necessary and how much is destructive? Where is the boundary between courageous vulnerability and dangerous vulnerability?

Perhaps this proposal is less of a stated prediction of my future production in the studio and more a conscious question.  How will my subconscious answer? The paintings will tell.

Karen Kilimnik Wins at Child’s Play

Karen Kilimnik says f--k you! …with cat stickers. Her recent exhibition at 303 Gallery in New York was hilarious and rebellious.  I love a bombastic Dana Schutz exhibition- don’t get me wrong - but it was refreshing seeing art that was not abiding by Big Boy’s rules.  While Schutz may respond to blows with blows, Kilimnik is staging a sit-in. All artists have the canon ringing in their ears but Kilimnik’s free-spirited artwork reminds viewers that play is the key to creativity. I wish artwork was called artplay.

It’s out of art-world vogue to admit that inspiration has anything to do with making art.  Instead pride is taken in strong work ethic. Perhaps it’s time to revitalize words like inspiration and fun and goofing-off instead of glorifying hard work and grit. Defining art as work-which of course it is-overemphasizes production and achievement rather than the ebb and flow, the ups and downs, the failures and experiments and simple joy of creating: of playing.  Of art-making.  Artwork can define the material production of art but to use it always without interweaving play creates a stagnant imbalance in both artists’ and viewers’ expectations. 

I compare Schutz to Kilimnik because Schutz is any easy bite, playing well within the aesthetic rules we know and know to love- grand scale, clever, complicated composition and powerful color and gesture. Kilimnik’s paintings in contrast seem underworked, washed-out, simple and anticlimactic. Too pretty and benign to be rebellious. But the act is courageous, in a “Frankly, I don’t give a damn” fashion.   Kilimnik’s glittering paintings and sticker sprinkled collages reintroduce free-spirited whimsy by opening what the viewer sees to questions and doubts of - is this good, is this valid, is this finished? A fresh reminder that art involves more than just finished product.  The product is merely a transparent container for the spirit that fills it.

The exhibition of Karen Kilimnik inspired me because it was spirit-heavy and product-light. To make Art that is grandiose, flashy or compositionally sound is not interesting to me because it is not an authentic expression of the human experience.  Where are the flaws, the failures, the struggles? Kilimnik’s art was small but forthright. What was there was laughing and pleasurable and honest. It sparkled, literally. Ultimately I believe that worthy art is authentic art. To authentically express takes time and dedication to peel away layers of adult and become child again. But more importantly it takes courage, to allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to be seen. No clever tricks or fancy tools to mask flaw or fragility or strange originality.

How brave can I be - Kilimnik style? Do I have the courage to put cat stickers on my paintings? The canon is a point of tension in my mind, lurking and judging and comparing. Pointing its’ finger to say - it’s not big enough, it’s not worked enough, it’s not clever enough. Do I have the courage to paint in a way that the canon has not deemed worthy? The wrestling match in my mind grounds my art practice, motivating my drive to strengthen my game. To win at artplay.

Tarot Cards

I titled my latest series of paintings Tarot Cards.  Though I know very little about Tarot I am interested in their relationship to Archetypes.   Jung believed that archetypes were universally and innately understood. That all of us, no matter our culture or education had an inert familiarity to these collection of traits embodied in various mythological figures. Supposedly the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck is based on Archetypes. 

My intention in this series was to allow the process to be the content.  I don’t conceptually premeditate paintings anyway, but the shift here was allowing the process of painting to become focal instead of peripheral. I chose to work on a modest size - 18 x 24 inches of 30 to 40 canvases.  The repetition is journalistic. By starting a new painting every studio session it became a visual record of my unconscious.

After posting some of these paintings on Instagram a friend of mine, who studies Tarot, commented that certain paintings reminded her of specific cards. The Tarot cards she suggested were aligned with what I was feeling/thinking during the time of painting. This confirmed my painting practice as a way for my unconscious mind to communicate with my conscious mind, personally as well as collectively. The images were figurative, mostly singular and somehow totemic.

My source material and inspiration is fashion photography.  Models can be viewed as contemporary versions of mythological figures or gods and goddesses.   Just as models are an exaggerated visual expression of current societal ideals so too are Archetypes and Mythological gods.

The Tarot series and my paintings in general depict my personal ‘Hero Journey’. Pictorially displaying my process of untangling emotions intertwined with contextual identity and self-discovery. Through Tarot Cards we seek objective illumination of our inner struggles and triumphs, finding security knowing that we are not lost on our journey nor are we alone.