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CONTACT!
What should I say about my art?
What is Art anyway?
So much has been claimed in the name of "Art".
So much has been said. The word has been bandied about and used for everything from the arcane to the mundane. The occult to the operation of a backhoe. I might
as well add my two cents worth.
Art is a language, a visual language. Just as English, French and Mongolian are
spoken means of passing information from one person to another.
There are so many such languages, aren't there. Just because an English or Japanese
person doesn't understand Mongolian does that mean it is any less of a means of
communication? Of course not.
And then there are dialects. In so many cases, the same language, as spoken in one
area of a country is almost unintelligible in another. Yet it is the same language. Are
we beginning to get a picture here?
The language of art is divided up in so many ways. The languages of art are many
and varied. Not just by country and area but by history, by movement, by group
and most of all, by individual. Each artist is a dialect. How is any understanding
possible?
Art is many things. In some cases it is a form of recording the world around us, or
enhancing it, portraying some scene that shows us a place we've never seen or
reminds us of one we have, whether for personal pleasure or political agendas.
Sometimes it is delving into the spirit and soul that moves us. Attempting to under-
stand the grand themes that run through our lives, love, hate, survival, ambition,
fear.
In art, the things we see, feel, the things and ways we think, everything about us
and our universe is transfigured in ways that distill the experience of life such that
our awareness and understanding is enhanced.
Sometimes this is simply a matter of enhancing colours, changing the position of
a tree, removing things from a scene. Sometimes it is a matter of extending much
farther, delving much deeper, into what lies beneath the surface.
Here's another thought for you. Art is the means of providing a new way of seeing.
That's not a new way of looking at something, but a new way our brains process
and interpret the visual information provided by our eyes. In this light Cubism
comes to mind, where the commonplace has been dramaticaly transfigured.
If a work of art moves you, be it visual, sound or feeling, it is for connections
deep within. If not, then your connections lie elswhere.
Who are my favourite artists? Miro and Jasper Johns, followed by Cezanne, Henry Moore, Arp, deChirico, Magritte And ,my daughter. My dialect? It is full of hands and eyes, dreams and thoughts, time and space. And of course, flying. Take the painting "Brush" for example. What could possibly be going on here? We see a head with a hand in it, the finger pointing down the nose. Do you remember the images of God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling? God is reaching out to Adam. Their index fingers almost touching while the spark of life is transferred across to Adam. So much of the time I feel, not like a creator, but a conduit, passing these thoughts and ideas on. They seem to arrive in my thoughts as full blown images so much of the time. Down they go on paper, little drawings.That spark is passed from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tan canvas. Out of the mouth, on the breath, a transfer across space to become visible on the canvas, next to the hand of a clock, also a pointing arrow. A little above this entrance of one image is another image leaving. The spirit embodied is going where? Into anothers conscious. Once an image is seen it is with you forever. Eventually a full circle is made. Oroborous. The brush? The physical means to make that image appear.The ceramic faces in my sculptures all come from one mold. I remember having it drummed into me that all of us begin the same. From the moment of birth, and even before, we are changed from that sameness by our individual experiences. Each of us becoming more unique as time passes. Time, it carries on, heedless of all things. Edvard Munch, famous for his painting " The Scream" produced another, more important work, " Between the Clock and the Bed " eloquently portraying our passage, through time, from birth to death.
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