Views & Thoughts
I have created this section to
give some insight into my thinking behind- and approach to my art. I
would welcome feedback on my thoughts expressed here, but decided to
move the comments section to a separate blog.
When one writes an introduction
to- and brief explanation of one's work, one involuntarily has to
choose one's audience. In this case my audience is my potential
customers and that determined the tone and choice of content and must
be judged accordingly.
Some toes might get stepped on...
---ooo<OOO>ooo---
Manifestos
As a rule
I am not in favour of putting out manifestos about my art as I see it
as unduly self-limiting, placing unnecessary restrictions upon oneself. It is, to use a distinction drawn by Paul
Tournier in his book The Meaning of Persons, of the order of the personage and not of the person, placing oneself voluntarily in a tomb.
I am evolving, and so are my views and approaches to art.
About the only
thing I am prepared to state about my art by way of a manifesto is that
it reflects my Christian worldview ...but in ways not always
obvious or predictable. That worldview too is evolving. I intend, in the course of time, to create a
separate blog where I will give a fuller exposition of those views.
Intellectualizing
To my mind intellectualizing
often
goes hand-in-hand with manifesto writing: it becomes the self- or
critic-constructed filter through which the viewer looks at your art. I
see my art as the product of a quiet meditative process, hence the
need
for extended periods of solitude and privacy I accord myself to be able
to produce it. For me to intellectualize about it is to introduce a
self-conscious metallic-sounding note to the creative process. It's
fine for others, in particular critics, to intellectualize about my
work all they want - after all I can't stop them, but I feel that with
regard to myself, since much of the creative process is a 'groping' in
the nether regions of one's subconscious mind towards that indefinable
'something', the cerebral is not of much help there.
I try to structure my work in such a way that it
has several layers. The surface ones may entail a device, a gimmick or 'hook' if you
wish, that draws the viewer into the work involuntarily. Then, before the gimmick
loses its hold on the viewer, a second aspect to the work catches the
eye, then a third ...and so on. In that way, I can't see why all good
artworks, even the most profound ones, can't be accessible (up to a
point) to relatively unsophisticated viewers. Oswald Chambers remarked
that all deep oceans have shallow shores. If there is nowhere any
shallowness to be found it could be an indication of a mentally
unbalanced personality.
The cerebral per se is
therefore something I actually try to bypass in order to access something
deeper and more precious - communion with the viewer, sharing of an experience - the realm of the spirit, feeling and
intuition. Like I said - that hard-to-define hard-to-capture non-verbal 'something'.
By
the time the intellect starts to kick in, most of the work's impact and
meaning should, if it is a successful piece in my book, have discharged itself to
the viewer.
It has become apparent to me over the years that most people do not actually look at artworks anymore. They look 'past' it, 'around' it, through it to
what they perceive to be the more important issue that connects to it,
namely the status
it is thought to impart to the owner thereof because of its percieved
market value. They cast sideways glances to the 'experts' and the
critics, the Art Police in other words, for permission to like or
dislike it.
Now I am not trying to open a hornets nest of cultural philistinism
this way. The critics and the experts have their role to play, but they
do not displace one's personal encounter with the work of art, nor do
they dispense with the matter of taste. There is such a thing as
personal taste. And taking cognisance of the critic's views of one's
work does not dispense with the need of the viewer/art collector to
actually look at the artwork itself.
To intellectualize is to perform a post mortem
on the experience (which is what critics make a living from, explaining
why they prefer artworks that give them something to write about). It
does not, however, thus create a necessary precondition for it. That
explains why T.S Elliot
said about one of his critics that he (the critic) understood his
work better
than he (Elliot) did himself.
When I create I don't analyze, when I analyze I don't create. It
just happens ...albeit with years of experience and practice behind me -
I am not pretending it comes easily. My art training does count for something.
Ideas present themselves to me, often instantaneously, as if given from Above. I 'see' it in my mind's eye, and simply set out to execute them. Well, not so simply really. It can be a titanic struggle actually. One does intuitively know beforehand if you are onto something good or not without having to justify or analyze it intellectually. Merely realizing the sometimes daunting initial vision, rather than endeavouring to enrich the work with more intellectual content, is what I find most difficult.
Paul Klee's famous Twittering Machine more or less sums up for me what is wrong with misplaced intellectualizing:
Paul Klee. Twittering Machine. 1922.
Meaning
From a Christian
eschatological viewpoint, the prognosis for this world we're living in
is not good, and death is a problem for which no technological solution
exists, but the Message offers a way out for those willing to accept
it, which will not be without sacrifice though. Hence
pessimism and hope, anger and joy, fear and courage can coexist within
the framework of this worldview, the
one set being of the order of Things Temporary and the other set of the
order
of Things Eternal. At the basic level the meaning of my work falls into
two categories - that which
celebrates Life and
Creation, and that which is Prophetic.
Viewed from a Christian perspective, the meaning of our existence
is not tragic, but heroic. Even when we lose we win. That is in essence what my work endeavours to reflect.
Æsthetics
Æsthetics and Meaning and Context are inextricably
linked. You
cannot divorce the one from the other without destroying it. It easily
becomes a quagmire I would rather not venture into right now (but might tackle at a later date)...
Ismism
Sorting and characterizing artworks and art periods into neat boxes,
usually before or while they are busy happening, '-Ismism' in other
words, is a charasteristic of the post-1900 art scene, often going hand
in hand with manifesto writing.
It's the disease of our age and it is so difficult to get away from
it, especially if your whole art training was bent on getting you to
buy into the system. It tells one something about the
self-consciousness
and contrivedness involved. There is a kind of philosphical
self-referentialness (lovingly called 'context' in Post Modernist
philosophizing about art) underlying the development of Ismims
historically that goes something like this:
|
> |
This statement makes the point that there an artwork. |
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> |
This statement states that there is a certain type artwork that shows it knows it is an artwork. |
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> |
This statement states that there is a certain type of artist who likes to make a certain type of artwork that shows it knows it is an artwork. |
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> |
This statement states that there is a certain type of artist that shows he/she knows he/she is making an artwork that shows it knows it is a certain type of artwork. |
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> |
This
statement states that there is a certain type of art critic/art
historian who likes to observe a certain type of artist etc... |
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> |
This
statement states that there is a certain type of viewer who likes to
observe a certain type of art critic/art historian who likes to observe
a certain type of artist etc... |
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> |
This statement states that there is a kind of viewer (fortunately not
many of them yet) who cottoned on to this and now likes to observe himself/herself
observing a certain type of art
critic/art historian etc... |
| > |
Coda: This
statement states that somewhere in this process of 'metafication,'
growing more and more cerebrally topheavy, the original artwork got
lost. |
And methinks it has a lot to do with the process
of manipulating the art market more than anything else.
Tournier* remarked that society has, from the Renaissance to the present, gradually moved from 'person orientatedness' to 'object orientatedness.' One of the consequences of this progression is (if progress it is) is the obsession with the philosophical preoccupation with the 'art object' and that causes the public to think of an artwork only in terms of its market value and nothing else. Underlying this is an education model I take serious issue with (which I will expound on another occasion).
An example would be an incident, not so long ago, where I noticed
a framed drawing against someone's wall, and, recognizing the artist,
went closer to get a better look, whereupon my host, noticing my
interest, immediately moved to inform
me what it was worth in monetary terms instead of embarking on a
discussion on its visual merits. That was the only aspect about it that
he could relate to.
How banal. But then, what would one expect when we live in a society
where everything's worth, even those of people, is measured in monetary
terms and the only time art gets any mention in the newsmedia at all is
when
it fetches a record price at an auction?
Jesus said "Unless you become like little children, you shall not
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.' Do not think He was advocating childishness.
He was referring to another aspect of children: their
unselfconscious artlessnes.
That is what I endeavour to produce:
Unselfconscious artless art.
Only time will tell whether I am succeeding...
*Paul Tournier, The Meaning of Persons
To be continued...
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